The Healing Journey

September 12, 2025

This is the story of Klink, a dachshund who lived his best life roaming the streets of Greenwich, back before there were leash laws.

Susie got him when she was a teenager, and they were best friends forever. Klink slept under the covers with her every night, she made Klink his own cup of coffee every morning, and when she went to the store, Klink sat in the carriage while she went through the aisles looking for clothes or art supplies.

When she went to college, Klink went too. When she drove to the beach, Klink came. They were inseparable. When she took him to the pet store for supplies, he would bark at the parakeets and puppies.

During the day, while Susie was at work, Klink traveled here and there throughout the neighborhood, and when it was dinner time, Susie’s mother would go to the porch and ring a bell, and in a matter of minutes, Klink would be scurrying up the driveway ready for dinner.

Sometimes it seemed Klink was prone to misadventures, like the time he chewed through the cord of the bedroom lamp and got seriously shocked, or the time he was hit by a car during his wandering and was at the vet for days. It reached the point where Susie’s father, George, said, “This dog costs me a fortune in medical bills. The next time something happens, I’m getting him a room at Greenwich Hospital.”

They shared 16 years of friendship, companionship, misadventures and love between Susie and Klink. And then the day came when he died. Susie still remembers how he shut his eyes, as if falling asleep, and then was gone. She cried every night for months, and sometimes, years later, she still cries when she remembers all the love he gave her.

The great humorist Will Rogers once said, “If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.”
©J Pisani

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