cutter

May 2025

We woke up early, the morning after a long weekend, and went for a walk on the west side of Manhattan. Short, out to the end of the pier and back, maybe twenty minutes. He moved slowly, with a limp I had noticed a week earlier, but otherwise at a normal pace. He kept his head on a swivel, as always, searching for someone to say hi to or a boat on the water to inspect from afar. 

The rest of the morning back home he laid near my feet as I worked. I glanced at him periodically. He wasn’t comfortable, rising and sitting on the ground every few minutes, maneuvering his body into different contortions, seeking relief. He’d find it, then lose it, and have to start over again.

Around noon, I latched his collar and leash, and opened the door to my apartment. After he took a few steps outside in the hallway, he got rid of all his breakfast, the chicken-grain feed still mostly intact, lining parts of the door, walls, and hardwood. He stood very still as I cleaned up. I knew then that he was in pain. But, a few minutes later, he seemed lighter and even offered a mouth-opened pant that usually meant he was happy and engaged. We stepped outside. With dry cleaning in my right hand and his leash in my left, we walked a few blocks to drop my suit for cleaning. He peed on the flowers and a few blocks later came inside the dry cleaners with me, sniffing the stale air, as if to give the all clear, or his approval. I took a slip from the man and left. We walked home together.

It would be our last walk. Kind of. After seven and a half years, Cutter, my dog who I estimate walked with me over 10,000 miles in our time together, gave me a look I’ve been dreading to see since the day I brought him home. People have said to me “they’ll tell you when they’re ready” but I never believed them. Too tidy, too neat, too easy. How’s he going to tell me? 

He did. Three months after a cancer diagnosis and hundreds of steroid pills to push it into brief remission, he told me. I laid on the ground with him and asked: Is this it, buddy? On a random Tuesday afternoon, just like this? He raised his head and looked me in the eyes, holding my gaze. Yes. This was it. I called our vet and made short-notice arrangements. He threw up two more times, for good measure. Hell yeah, buddy, whatever you gotta do.

Our last walk wasn’t one. I carried him down our short stairs and out to the sidewalk. He looked ahead, surveying the scene, and then he looked up at me: no. So I picked him up, the bulk of his weight in my right arm, as his head hung over my left shoulder. I felt his heart beating and his heavy breath on my neck. Michelle, now with us, held one of his paws.

We walked a few blocks. He was heavy and I, too, was breathing hard. I gently placed him down for a moment. He couldn’t take a single step. I picked him back up, same hold position. Another few blocks, I put him down one more time. He took two steps and lost whatever was left of breakfast out the other end. We cleaned it up the best we could. But he certainly left a spot for commuters to avoid that afternoon. He was always good at mixing humor and heartbreak.

I picked him up one more time and carried him to the last place he’d ever go with me, our last shared errand. We found ourselves in a backroom almost immediately. He laid on two fleece beds that were very soft. He couldn’t move much. They gave us some instructions and procedures in hushed tones. I signed what I needed to sign. The going rate right now is six hundred and eight dollars to have your dog put down.

I want to say that Cutter, in that room with me and Michelle and a cast of vet techs, looked calm, that he was at peace with his surroundings, with his current physical and mental space. I don’t know if he was. I don’t know if he knew the weight of the moment. But I can say with some certainty that he knew he was in that moment loved, that my tightening grip with my arms around his neck and torso and my hands on his cheeks and my mouth kissing the top of his head told him he was loved and adored and cherished and cared for. I think he knew that even if he didn’t know why exactly it was so intense in that moment.

The vet administered a tube into his front left leg. Then another. Cutter rested his head on my knee as I held him and buried my face into his neck. Michelle held him and she held me. Cutter was, by now, asleep. The last thing his mind and body heard and felt was my deepening sobs and tightening grip around him, telling him that I loved him. Over and over. I screamed and lost my breath and my understanding of time. It was probably thirty seconds in all but felt a lot longer and a lot shorter than that. A voice from the vet said “he’s no longer with us.” And that was that. For the first time, I held his body that didn’t contain a pulse or a thought. He was in the room but the part of him that mattered was gone.

On a random Tuesday, seven and a half years after he came into this world in northern Colorado, Cutter died in downtown Manhattan, in my arms.

Cutter was a privilege to know and be with. If you met him, you likely felt the same. I showed him the world and he showed me how to live in this world. He showed this world grace and patience and humor and he lived with curiosity.

I will really miss him.