- A 14-year-old cat, Duke Ellington Morris, is now a remedy animal on the San Francisco Worldwide Airport.
- He is a part of the Wag Brigade, a gaggle of animals meant to calm down passengers earlier than their flights.
- Duke was rescued as a kitten and likewise works as a remedy animal in numerous California hospitals.
Meet San Francisco Worldwide Airport’s latest remedy animal: 14-year-old cat, Duke Ellington Morris.
The feline has been added to SFO’s Wag Brigade, which, in accordance with the airport’s web site, is a program bringing “educated canines to the terminals to make passenger journey extra satisfying.”
The Wag Brigade has been round for nearly a decade, and whereas it was initially only for canines, in recent times a pig named LiLou joined the squad, together with a rabbit named Alex, and now Duke. These animals journey across the airport and might be noticed sporting vests labeled “Pet Me!”
Duke’s addition to the Wag Bridge shouldn’t be his first foray into animal remedy work. In an interview with SFGate.com printed Friday, Duke’s proprietor, Jen Morris, spoke about his backstory.
Within the interview, Morris says she adopted Duke, a feral cat present in San Francisco, in 2010 when he was a yr previous. Given his relaxed demeanor, Morris received him licensed to be a remedy cat, and he began working with sufferers at totally different hospitals.
“He used to go to UCSF for visits on the ICU. And they might wheel him in on a cart and individuals who needed to pet him received approval from their medical doctors,” Morris informed the location. “They’d give them a pleasant scratch beneath the chin.
—The Dodo (@dodo) February 1, 2017
His work didn’t go unnoticed and Duke was featured in a 2016 KPIX information story about him cheering up sufferers at UCSF Medical Middle’s ICU. He was additionally profiled by the favored animal web site The Dodo.
Per SFGate.com, Duke was initially named Tai Chi Tuxedo, however Morris later renamed him after the jazz legend of the identical title.