Black stencil of a smiling bulldog standing with front paws visible, set against a pale blue background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Bulldog stencil design

Black and grey · Flash

A solid black stencil of a bulldog standing upright, with a broad grin, wrinkled brow and folded skin across the chest. The linework is bold and simplified, with the body shown as a flat silhouette and only a few interior lines for facial features and folds. The design is black on a pale blue background, with no greys or other colours, and the dog fills most of the centred square frame.

Dog Stencil Silhouette

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The big top had three patches on its roof and a bald stripe over the trapeze where the sun came through, so the hands had taken to calling it the skylight. Mr Fenwick still insisted the bulldog do his turn before the interval, same as he had in Margate the year I joined. Dodger would rise onto his hind legs, square his shoulders like a publican with a bill to collect, and grin at the back rows until somebody laughed. Nobody laughed much that August.

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On the Tuesday the bank man came with his clipboard and his hat in his hands, and afterwards Fenwick sat on the water barrel for an hour without lighting his pipe. I took Dodger down to the field by the canal for some air. He sniffed the wet grass, then planted himself at the edge of the towpath and stared at a heron standing in the shallows, which was the most serious I had ever seen him.

We struck the ring on the Saturday. The poles came down, the canvas went into the lorry in folded sections, and the last thing standing was the painted sign board with its letters flaking off the wood. Dodger climbed onto the crate beside it and waited, brow wrinkled, chest puffed, grin fixed on the empty gate. I told him there was nobody coming. He held his pose anyway, as though the field was full and the band was about to strike up.

Fenwick found us there at dusk, and for once he didn't tell the dog to get down. He took off his cap, stood beside the crate, and we watched the lane together until the lamps came on.