Dean Poling
The Valdosta Daily Times
VALDOSTA —
Creaking with age, Coda still rose to guide Susan Weeks on limited excursions.
The 15-year-old Labrador retriever had been with Weeks for 14 years. Though retired from her more strenuous duties, old habits die hard for a guide dog. Coda’s training to lead the blind and remain loyal to Weeks never diminished.
“She was still capable to lead me in some capacity,” said Weeks, who has been blind since her 20s. “I didn’t work her hard in the later years. She still helped me in stores. I live in an environment where I can get to the mini-mart easily. But in that last year, it was very limited.”
In February, Coda could do no more. Her time came. With Coda’s death, Susan Weeks lost a faithful friend and her eyes.
“I went through a very hard time missing Coda,” Weeks says, but this wasn’t the first time she had faced this experience.
Weeks has been working with guide dogs since 1976. Coda was her third guide dog.
“Each dog is different,” Weeks says. “Each dog leaves its mark on you.”
She grieved for Coda, but she knew she needed a new guide dog.
In the past, Weeks had received guide dogs from a place in Michigan. She applied there again, but she also applied to Southeastern Guide Dogs.
Shopping with Coda several months earlier at Publix, Weeks met Tammie and Mike Glasscock with a guide dog in training. The Glasscocks of Valdosta serve as a foster family training young pups to become guide dogs for the blind. The Glasscocks work with Southeastern based out of Florida.
Based on this meeting, Weeks applied with Southeastern.
Southeastern was closer to her Valdosta home and her husband, Danny Weeks, the Lowndes 911 Center manager. The Michigan site couldn’t introduce her to a new dog until close to year’s end. Southeastern could introduce her to a new dog this summer.
In August, Susan Weeks traveled to Southeastern Guide Dogs to meet Moses.
“He walked into the room and walked into my heart,” Weeks says.
Each participant receives a photograph of their dog as a puppy. Weeks cannot see this picture, but she has heard descriptions of the image.
A guide dog harness surrounds the small black lab puppy. Only 6 weeks old, Moses sits with a regal bearing, a sense of purpose, echoed months later in the poise of the grown dog sitting at Weeks’ feet.
“He knew he wanted to be a guide dog from the start,” Weeks says.
Moses came of age in a sighted foster home. Foster families take training dogs everywhere: Stores, restaurants, work, home. The dogs learn how to handle public situations. Foster families train them how to respond. They teach the dogs how to lead.
After several months, these dogs leave the foster families and return to Southeastern for more specific training. Then, the dogs meet their “forever friend,” such as Moses being introduced to Susan Weeks.
Weeks spent 26 days at Southeastern training with Moses. Though she knows how to handle a guide dog, leading a “forever friend” was still new for Moses.
“This is still a new dog even if I’m an old stick at it,” Weeks says.
At the age of 10, Susan lost sight in her left eye due to a detached retina. Though legally blind, she could still see out of her right eye until the age of 20.
Then, one morning, a newlywed, she awoke but could not see properly out of her right eye. Another detached retina, though it did not take her sight entirely. Not at first.
“It was like somebody pulls a shade over your eye,” Weeks says.
She recalls being able to see people’s feet. That was all. Anything higher had been obscured by the detached retina.
She visited Emory and other medical facilities. They could do nothing as the remainder of her vision, even the sight of people’s shoes, faded to black.
This occurred in the 1970s. With the help of her guide dogs, Weeks has built a life for herself. She travels to the store. She raises vegetables in a garden with her husband.
Last week, she and Moses came home. Training continues here. Valdosta has few sidewalks, so Moses must adapt. Moses must learn Weeks’ routines and regular paths.
Especially with a new dog, she must also “train” people they meet along the way. It is important for others not to pet a working dog without permission. Weeks stresses this point. She emphasizes it. Moses works for her approval. Approval is Moses’ reward for guiding her.
“If everyone tells him what a good boy he is, he’ll begin to think he doesn’t have to work for me.”
Most importantly, Weeks and Moses continue bonding.
“Moses is just wonderful,” she says. “... He’s gentle and laid back. I’m a fast walker, and he has that fast gait.”
No one could ever take Coda’s place. Nor Coda take the place of the guide dogs before her. But Weeks has found a new forever friend in Moses.
