BROOMFIELD, Colo. (KDVR) — A Colorado Uber driver has been making his rides a bit more fun, and more memorable, by filming encounters with passengers and his dog, who rides shotgun on all their trips.
In the last year, their videos have received hundreds of thousands of views, turning this rescue dog into a viral sensation.
The now-famous dog’s owner, Kevin Ferman, said he adopted Bowie a couple of years ago from a friend whose mom and rescued a litter of lab puppies in New Mexico. Ferman, who had been an Uber driver for about ten years, then quickly realized he couldn’t just leave his new rescue dog home all the time.
“Bowie doesn’t like being left at home. Especially as a puppy. He has really bad separation anxiety and you know so I’m like, ‘You know, he’s so good in the car. It’s like the one place he always behaves’,” Ferman said.
So, he had an idea.
“I’ll just take him along, you know. See how it goes. And it instantly was a big hit.”
He said all the reactions were so different and wholesome, so he decided to try something out. He placed a camera on the roof of his car to film the inside of the car when riders get in. After each ride, he asks his passengers if they are okay with be on his social media, and then he posts it either on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok.
At first, Ferman said, it took a long time to get started.
“I remember on episode eight, you know, we weren’t getting any traction to the show or anything. I put a ton of extra time into episode eight because that was sort of the final straw for me,” Ferman said, thinking that might be his last episode.
It sat at under 100 views for about a week. But then, something changed.
“Randomly overnight it started getting tens of thousands and then eventually hundreds of thousands of views,” Fermin said.
Then, he said, the rest was history. When asked about his favorite interaction, he said he always goes back to one passenger named Phyllis.
“She got in and her reaction, I mean her face just lit up the second she saw this dog and she was so sweet,” he said. “She had a lot of very quotable things that she said during that episode and one of them was, you know, something about just dogs are so wonderful, like you just give them some food and some water and they’re just a trusted friend forever.”
Bowie is also in the running for America’s Favorite Pet, which people can vote on, and he said the money won will go into continuing to make content and for his channel.
Ferman said he is accepting private inquiries for rides, or you can just bank on the element of surprise next time you are waiting for an Uber in the Broomfield or Boulder area.