CASTLE ROCK, Colo — You’ve probably heard many allude to a life on the road, but Daniel Sievert truly lives up to phrase. When we caught up with him in his Best Western hotel room in Castle Rock, he was on roughly mile 3,600 of about 5,000 — and that’s just for this individual journey.
“As I say, I drive on faith and fumes,” Sievert laughed.
He travels state to state, for months at a time, and readily admits how exhausting — and expensive — it can be. The good news, though, is that he has a particularly precious road trip buddy: his service dog, Cooper.
"As you can see, Cooper is definitely joy,” Sievert said, chuckling as the dog played at his feet. “I call it joy on steroids.”
Sievert has had several service dogs in his life. He suffered a severe electrocution in his early twenties that nearly killed him, and his left arm remains injured and weak to this day. His dogs have been a consistent source of help and comfort for him, and along the way, he learned they had a lot to offer the people around him, too — even complete strangers.
“Cooper will walk up to a person at the grocery store and he’ll engage them, and I shortly find out that they’re going through a heavy crisis,” Sievert said. “He’s able to bring some deep joy to people. And the way he does that is he engages them with a very close hug. And shortly thereafter, they tell me their story.”
Sievert has heard countless stories and seen countless tears now. He calls his endeavors his “Golden Missions of America,” traveling far and wide and to the scenes of several high profile tragedies. He has brought his dogs to Centennial following the Arapahoe High School shooting, and Colorado Springs after the shooting at a Planned Parenthood. He went to Massachusetts after the Boston Marathon bombing, to Washington after mudslides and wildfires and to San Bernardino after the terrorist attack there.
“We go to some of these events because some of these people would get lost otherwise in their grief,” Sievert said. “Dogs have a sense that’s hard for us to explain. They can sense the deeply hurting people, whether it be physical or emotional.
“It’s one thing to talk to a counselor. It’s [another] to hug a dog.”
This is his 54th journey across the United States. Where will his travels take him once he packs up his suitcases in his Castle Rock Best Western hotel room, you ask? He isn’t sure. He may go “south, west, or backwards,” he said.
As Sievert said at the beginning of our interview, he exists on “faith and fumes,” and donations that sustain his mission. He believes deeply that whichever direction he heads in, he and Cooper will end up in a place they are meant to be.
“I believe God sends me,” he said. “One encounter after the other, there are tears and hugs and joy… My mission is just to come alongside and say, ‘I’m here. We care.’”