Meet Duke Ellington Morris, the 14-year-old cat at San Francisco International Airport.
The feline has joined SFO’s Wag Brigade, a program that, according to the airport’s website, brings “trained dogs to the terminals to make passenger travel more enjoyable.”
The Wag Brigade has been active for over a decade, and while it was originally just for dogs, a pig named LiLou, a rabbit named Alex, and now Duke have all joined the group. These animals may be seen walking about the airport sporting “Pet Me!” vests.
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Duke’s contribution to the Wag Bridge is not his first venture into animal therapy. Jen Morris, Duke’s owner, spoke about his origins in an interview with SFGate.com published on Friday.
Morris adds in the interview that she adopted Duke, a stray cat rescued in San Francisco, when he was a year old. Morris qualified him as a therapy cat because of his calm nature, and he began working with patients at several hospitals.
“He used to travel to UCSF for ICU visits.” And they’d wheel him in on a cart, and people who wanted to pet him had to get permission from their doctors,” Morris explained to the site. “They’d give them a nice scratch beneath the chin.”
Duke the rescue cat (full name: Duke Ellington Morris) visits this hospital to help all the patients feel safe. https://t.co/Ovn1qkrbIT pic.twitter.com/dIr1T0WKot
— The Dodo (@dodo) February 1, 2017
Duke’s efforts were recognized, and he was featured in a 2016 KPIX news article about him cheering up patients at the UCSF Medical Center’s ICU. The prominent wildlife website The Dodo also featured him.
According to SFGate.com, Duke was initially named Tai Chi Tuxedo, but Morris eventually renamed him after the same-named jazz icon.