SPEARVILLE -- If you call Spearville home, if you work there, or even if you just stop by occasionally to purchase auto parts or a gallon of milk, then you probably know Bob Weis.

For more than three decades, he has been a fixture in this town of 700, walking his dog nearly every day from corner to corner, occasionally stopping to chat or offer a quick hello.

At his side will be Harpooa, a thigh-high Golden Retriever mix that, for six years now, has served as Weis’s eyes. Weis, who has always had trouble seeing but who went completely blind in 1989, trained Harpooa himself after his previous seeing-eye-dog, a German Shepherd named Rambo, died in 1997.

"That was very tough," he said of Rambo’s death. "I went to get another dog, but I wasn’t ready. …Later I decided to train my own dog."

Weis, his wife, Sheila and four of their children -- Leasa, Theresia, Bobby, and Chris -- moved to Spearville in 1972. He has another daughter, Shayla, from a previous marriage. Still able to distinguish light and dark and some shapes, Weis began work for a local company in a metal shop operating several machines.

"I was limited, but I just did it," he said. "It was tough, but I had four kids to feed. You do what you have to do."

When he decided to turn in his cane for a guide dog, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Only two years after receiving Rambo, what little sight he had was gone.

"I had my dog and that’s the only thing that kept me going," he said. "I went through a pretty bad time trying to figure out what was going on, but I was very thankful that I had gotten used to my dog before I lost my sight."

Rambo was presented to Weis in 1987. Funded by the Lion’s Club of Spearville, the dog was trained in Rochester, Mich. Before receiving Rambo, Weis had to travel to Michigan for 25 days of training with the dog.

But the real training, he said, starts when you get the dog home and "you don’t have a counselor to ask what to do next."

"When I got home with the dog I went to the corner," Weis said. "That’s as far as I went. A few days later I went a few more blocks. After a week-and-a-half I ventured downtown to the bank. Then I ventured to the federated church. And now I can go anywhere in Spearville I want.

"It was very hard to learn to trust the dog 100 percent."

After Rambo’s death in 1997, Weis experienced a period of severe depression which eventually led to his hospitalization.

Then his son, Bobby, came to visit from Kansas City, bringing with him was an energetic and intelligent pooch that had been surviving on its canine wits for nearly a year.

Using the knowledge he had obtained in training Rambo, Weis set out to train Harpooa himself.

"It took two and a half months to train him and put away my cane," Weis said. "The amazing thing about this dog, he was running in the wild for about nine months. My boy found him in Kansas City and brought him out to me because he thought he was a smart dog -- and he was."

Every week, Harpooa and Weis venture into St. John the Baptist church where they sit near a side door. Harpooa sits quietly at his side, while Wies first prays the Rosary, then attends Mass. Weis admitted with a chuckle that his previous dog was a bit more high strung than Harpooa, and would, on occasion, let everyone on the church know if he thought the priest was getting a tad long winded.

Weis didn’t always go to Mass. In fact, he hadn’t been for quite some time when he received a visit from then-pastor of St. John’s, Father John Hammeke.

"He visited with me one day and I decided to go to Church," Weis said. "Through this all, I think God had a very strong hand in getting me back to church, and in the dog taking me to church. Harpooa’s trained to the point where he almost knows when I’m going to church. I’ve been going to Mass under five priests here, and every one has treated me very nice."