Ryan is a nightside reporter for Denver7.
DENVER — A man and his service dog are bringing hope and comfort to communities across the country, including several in Colorado. Daniel Sievert and his golden retriever service dog, Cooper, are from California’s Central Coast.
They arrived in Colorado in April and have made stops on the Western Slope, in the Colorado Springs area and around the Denver metro. 🐾 Watch: Denver7's Ryan Fish caught up with Sievert and Cooper More than 50 years ago, Sievert was electrocuted and severely burned. He says he remembers people helping him through that recovery.
“I was all but dead after that experience,” he recalled. “And I remember in my hospital room, there were people that would come and sit silently, just like Cooper, sitting silently and just be a presence, without giving any advice. And they would say, after a while, ‘You're going to get through this. There's a new life and a new hope ahead.
’”More recently, Sievert has overcome bladder cancer. Cooper has been his companion helping him through health challenges, but now is also a calming presence for strangers who may be facing their own struggles.
“His superpower is he has the keen ability to use his heart and mind to evaluate people,” Sievert said of Cooper. “I’d say seven out of 10 people are in tears after they have a meeting with Cooper, and it's five minutes. It's not like all day or half an hour. And they usually tell me that story of they lost somebody, or something happened, something's going on right now.
How are they going to get through it? And I just say, I breathe and I say, ‘There's hope ahead. ’”Sievert started driving across the U.S. with his previous golden retriever service dogs — Jake and Emerson — in 2013. He says he felt a calling to go to Boston to help people traumatized by the Boston Marathon Bombing.
In the following years, Sievert visited more than 60 communities recently hit by tragedy. That includes multiple stops in Colorado, after tragedies like the 2015 Planned Parenthood shooting. Sievert called these visits his 'Golden Missions of America.
' Denver7 caught up with him during his last visit to Colorado in 2022. This time, Sievert says he and Cooper are simply going wherever they feel called to, sensing a general anxiety and stress in people all over the country. He says they are powered by 'faith and fumes.
'“I'm bobbing and weaving throughout the United States and going where I feel an unction to be,” he explained. “The way people are driving, the way people are shopping: Hurry, hurry, hurry, worry, worry, worry.
“The inspiration that I have is that, unlike me not being heard sometimes, I want to be able to listen to people without any debate, without any judgment, without any religious view, without any partisan view, because I'm nonpartisan, because people have hearts, everybody needs to understand they're loved and they're cared for. ”Sievert and Cooper’s goal is to visit 101 places in 101 days. The trip is being funded by donations from strangers.
You can learn more about their journey on their website or Facebook page.
Cooper Service Dog Daniel Sievert Golden Missions Of America Golden Retrievers Man Traveling Across Country With Dog Service Dogs Therapy Dogs
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