Your last night shackled to your earthly trappings

Your last night shackled to your earthly trappings - Three years ago, this was a Saturday evening, and beloved you had given me two days more than I thought possible. I was on the phone with the vet's office at this time, letting them know that it wouldn't be much longer, that I would be calling them sometime during the night or early the next morning. My best friend in all this world ... we were losing our efforts to keep whatever was choking off your innards. This photo is from October 24, 2004, and is of another chapter in our lives, when the inherited progressive retinal atrophy (PRA) was taking your eyesight.

Wiggles, you know I love you forever, and miss you every single day and night, even as I thank you for saving Good Boy's life by your efforts to find him for me, and vice-versa. No one will ever be 'you' ... and I've felt you pouring peace into me all day, making this evening bearable, and actually a relief, because I knew that three of your dear paws were already in Heaven, and you told me when it was time for me to help you put the fourth there.

Thank you so much for being my sweet and dear buddy for all those years, and in spirit, forever and ever! I may answer to "Good Boy's Mommy" nowadays, but you know that I am ALWAYS and FOREVER "Wiggles' Mommy"!

Today is Your Birthday, Sweet Wiggles Blue Heeler!

Today is Your Birthday, Sweet Wiggles Blue Heeler!


July 19th, 2013


By Julie Kay Smithson aka Wiggles' Mommy-Me!


On this day in 1998, in the morning, you and your littermates were born somewhere in Holmes County, Ohio. According to Weather Underground historical weather data for that date in Millersburg, Ohio, the morning, a Sunday, began at 60 degrees, rose to 84, and there was .11 of an inch rainfall, so it was a typical mid-July summer day. I pray you weren't terribly hot, that your mother and littermates were somewhere cool, because you and I never handled heat or humidity well. 

We didn't meet until Tuesday, September 22nd, when you, your littermates and another litter of blue heeler puppies were brought to the Farm Science Review near London, Ohio. You were nine weeks and three days young, sweet one, and you and I traded hearts that day, never regretting for an instant, the decision!

September 22, 1998. Our first day together!

For more than a dozen years, through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, we were there for each other, living under the same humble-but-happy roof, the best of all friends.

July 19, 2000. Your second birthday!

April 2001

We traveled together, played and slept together, and aged together.

May 2001, trip to Montana.



May 2001, trip to Montana.

In your sixth year, inherited progressive retinal atrophy (PRA) took your physical sight, but you saw with your heart, and taught me to see with mine. If I thought we were close before, it was as nothing compared with the bond we forged when you taught me to be your seeing eye person! What blessings we knew and experienced!

June 17, 2004

October 20, 2004

When your dear body began to show signs that something was wrong (a growth of some kind in either your liver or kidney; a year & nine months of various tests never confirmed what or where, but it kept growing nonetheless), you still did your best to be my best friend ... and you succeeded, sweet heart!

It didn't matter if the unseen growth pressed on you until some urine began to leak when you'd lie down. What a small thing, in the grand blessing of your life! The only thing that ever mattered was that we loved each other -- still do, and always will!

March 7, 2008

On December 5th, 2010, just after seven in the morning, I took you to the vet's to offer you the help I promised, so you would not suffer anymore. You told me, at five that morning, that it was time, and somehow, I stayed calm during that drive east as the eastern sky lightened on a cold, dry day flanked by days before and after that were not safe to drive. God smiled on us and gave us so much, so many blessings!

December 5, 2010

You kissed me one last earthly time, and you know that I longed to step with you into Heaven, but God had other plans for me. I stayed here behind as He and you worked to find a special, terrified blind blue heeler 200 miles south in Kentucky, that needed life & a home as much as I needed someone to care for & help. No, Good Boy isn't you, but no one could ever be.

You and God work with Good Boy and I each and every day, and we love you both so much, for your help and guidance! I miss your earthly self, and always will, but know that your heart & soul are with me forever, as mine are with you.

Something special from the child of your soul

Something special from the child of your soul



May 18, 2013



This inspiration was given to Julie Kay Smithson today, to be shared with others that know this precious kind of love.

Beloved Wiggles Blue Heeler, Julie Kay Smithson and Good Boy ACD

I'm your dog and have something I'd like to convey to your heart & soul.

I know that your life is harried and busy. I appreciate always that you work hard so I'll have good food to eat, fresh water to drink, timely vet visits, walks and playtimes.

Look down at me now ... See the way I look at you? The grey hairs are starting to ring my soft muzzle. You smile at me and I can feel your love. What do you see when you look at me? Do you see a spirit, a soul that loves you as no other in the world ever could? Please, just a moment of your time, now ... a moment that we will both treasure forever.

I am aging much faster than you; the number of heartbeats I have in life are much fewer, so I do my best to make them count, for I truly love you with all my heart. I share your joys and grieve when you are sad. My whole being lives to make you happy, sweet person-parent, friend and protector of me!

As our earthly time together wings by, fleeting, we have communication that comes when you reach out with your heart and let your love flow through your fingertips, because I may not be able to "see" or "hear" you.

Believe me; I know your love when you let it flow into a kind touch that lingers, knowing that we will have forever in Heaven, but only a few brief eyeblinks of time here on earth.

God knows our love; He created it, gifted it to us and shares it with us forever!

Together forever!

It's Spring Again, Wiggles, My Love

It's Spring Again, Wiggles, My Love

April 18, 2008, Wiggles with the giant Dutch hyacinths.



April 27, 2013



By Julie Kay Smithson aka Wiggles Mommy aka Good Boy's Mommy

July 19, 2009 (your eleventh birthday and your party on the lawn with our friends). I had poison ivy, but no one minded. The weather was so lovely -- like it is today! -- and we had a wonderful birthday party!

It's spring again, Wiggles, my love, and you know I'm outside, sitting beside a flower bed, digging out the encroaching grass and weeds or separating daylilies, removing for replanting some that have strayed into the yard. It's sixty-five sunny degrees with a 3-mph whisper of a southeast breeze and low humidity, the perfect kind of day for such pleasures. The rainy weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow will be just right for newly-planted daylilies to 'set in' in their new home. Good Boy is here now, but I can feel your presence so keenly. Whereas he is lying in one place, or sniffing a little in the grass, you were/are forever near, ready at the softest call -- or often with no sound at all -- to come and bestow a sweet kiss on my cheek or hand.


Tears don't flow as often these days, but I miss you so very much. Thank you and God for sending Good Boy to me; he's very dear, though still bearing the emotional scars that keep him from giving me his whole heart. I know the feeling, because, while he and I are friends, I've not given him the whole of my heart, either. For the most part, our life together is peaceful, just not in the way yours and mine was, dear Wiggles. I understand that Good Boy did not know me, our home and yard since puppyhood, as you did. The surety that you and God continue your devotion to us is so important and so gratefully accepted.


These times of our lives are to be realized, savored and treasured, and though I cannot 'see' you, in the physical sense, you are no less present in my life, for today and always. I love you, Sweetest One, Many Kisses, he of the great heart and most gentle soul! Good Boy will live out his life here, loved and cared for by us -- for you and God are ever-present to guide and comfort us -- and you will always be the standard to which I aspire, a truly gentle soul.

If I had a nickel ...

If I had a nickel ...

Wiggles Blue Heeler, summer of 2001

March 20, 2013


By Wiggles' Mommy


If I had a nickel for every time beloved Wiggles crosses my mind, my wealth would be substantial. Several times each day -- and night -- the child of my soul comes softly to give me pause. Photos of him, as well as of Good Boy, adorn our home.

The above photo of Wiggles from the summer of 2001, when he was a youngster at age three, was a recent find while going through boxes of photos from cleaning out the folks' home. The cleaning was done two years ago, but in the busyness of life, I'd not had time to actually go through the photos until just a few days ago. Imagine my joy to come across this photo in which Wiggles eyesight was excellent, he had his 'yello-o ball' in his mouth and was so eager to play!

Last night's episode of NCIS featured a black lab whose owner/handler had been murdered. I didn't know until the every end of the episode that this dog would be shot (acting, of course), and survive, and that the soldier's widow would realize her dream of having her beloved husband's dog somehow be retired to live his life with her. Until Gibbs released this dog and it flew to the widow, whose sad tears became a flood of happy ones, there I sat, simply enjoying another great episode of my favorite television show.

Then ... the dam burst. My tears not only surfaced, but for about five minutes, I sobbed uncontrollably. There was Good Boy, lying in his bed on the other side of the living room, sweet n shy as always. I sank onto the floor from the couch and crawled over to him, putting my head down next to his muzzle and stroking his face while sobbing so hard that I was trembling. He stayed put, seeming to know that he was needed.

Good Boy, March 3, 2013

I wonder how much Good Boy knows about the miracle that God and beloved Wiggles brought to the two of us, finding us for each other and saving our lives a little over two years ago? Tonight it felt like he knew more than ever that his mommy has been through heartbreak that still revisits from time to time.

Wiggles, thank you and God so much for your eternal love and devotion. Thank you for this blessing of Good Boy that is a continuance of your presence in our home via another cattle dog / blue heeler who has learned to see with his heart and love me.

Our dear friend, Leonard Wood of Melbourne, Australia, blended a photo that our neighbor friend took of Wiggles and me on April 1, 2007, with a photo taken by neighbor Jeff of me & Good Boy on April 18, 2011.

Blended photo of Wiggles, me and Good Boy.

This photo made it possible for me to find joy in Christmas of 2011; Wiggles returned to Heaven on December 5, 2010, and Good Boy and I got together on March 2, 2011, so these two dear, sweet blue heelers had never met, but they both have great hearts and more than one thing in common: both are blue heelers (Australian cattle dogs), both lost their sight to inherited progressive retinal atrophy, or PRA, both are meek and kind, and both needed/need me to be not only a mommy, but also a 'seeing eye person.'

If I had a nickel for each time my thoughts go to beloved Wiggles ... but now God and he have made sure that Good Boy is here for me to love, and that I'm here for him to love.

Thanks for all the miracles that continue to happen in our lives, bonding us together forever!