Originally posted on NTD
Birds are cute, funny and can be great pets and friends. A program in the northwest has come up with a novel idea of using rescued birds to heal veterans, an idea that’s only growing wings.
For decades after leaving the US Marines, Douglas Ladd of Portland, Oregon grappled with anger and emotional issues. Then he found a companion and a help—a bare-eyed cockatoo named Cleopatra.
“You can’t get mad at her because she’s a bird,” Ladd, 62, told TODAY. “People you can get mad at, because they’re supposed to know better.”
Ladd and the cockatoo were connected with each other by Parrots for Patriots, a program in northwest that brings together birds and veterans in need of emotional therapy.
According to founder Chris Driggins, birds can be helpful to veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Birds are cute, funny and can be great pets and friends. A program in the northwest has come up with a novel idea of using rescued birds to heal veterans, an idea that’s only growing wings.
For decades after leaving the US Marines, Douglas Ladd of Portland, Oregon grappled with anger and emotional issues. Then he found a companion and a help—a bare-eyed cockatoo named Cleopatra.
“You can’t get mad at her because she’s a bird,” Ladd, 62, told TODAY. “People you can get mad at, because they’re supposed to know better.”
Ladd and the cockatoo were connected with each other by Parrots for Patriots, a program in northwest that brings together birds and veterans in need of emotional therapy.
According to founder Chris Driggins, birds can be helpful to veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“With PTSD or any other type of mental disorder, your life is a little confused,” Driggins, of Vancouver, Washington, told TODAY.
“Birds demand normalcy, and certain birds are very needy. They help you fall into a pattern — get up at this time, give me a treat at this time, give me TLC. Then you find yourself in a normal routine again. You don’t have those restless nights where you’re up all night worrying, because the bird has exhausted you. And if you do get up in the middle of the night, the bird will understand. There are so many things that birds can do for you that no other animal can.”
Though cats and dogs are popular pets, birds like parrots live longer than them. According to Driggins this is one of the main reason behind so many abandoned birds.
“The birds outlive the humans is what it boils down to,” said Driggins who also runs Northwest Bird Rescue. He especially pointed out that some parrots can live for 80 years.
And for veterans who have seen so much of life and death it’s essential that their pets don’t add to it. “I got tired of burying my dogs,” Paul Thomas, 36, told TODAY.
“(For veterans), that loss can be hard. It brings up a lot of things,” said Thomas, who served in the Air Force from 1999 to 2003 and turned to birds for solace.
Resident of Battleground, Washington, Thomas is now paired with three birds that include an African Grey, Sabrina that he got from Parrots for Patriots.
Like Sabrina, Driggins has placed 90 birds with veterans since she launched the program in 2015. Most of these animals were neglected and abused.
