Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Collie head silhouette on the side of the torso

Other · Black and grey · Photo

A small solid black silhouette of a dog's head facing right, with a feathered, fur-like edge along the back of the neck and ears. The linework is simple, with a fine outline around the muzzle and a dark filled body. The tattoo sits centrally on pale skin against a plain background, with denim visible at the bottom edge of the frame.

Other Dog Animal Profile Silhouette

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, the wind off the Cheviot gets into these stones and tells its own tales, so you'll have to talk over it. You want the dog? Aye, the dog. Her name was Nell, black as the peat water in the tarn below this wall, with a ruff of hair that stood up when the weather turned, as if the storm had combed her the wrong way.

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The laird who kept this tower was a hard man who counted sheep the way other men counted debts. When his last shepherd died of the fever, he sent Nell out onto the high pasture alone, saying a dog could gather a flock as well as any man if she had the nerve. She had the nerve. Every dusk she brought the ewes down through the bracken, one by one, and never once let one stray onto the bog road that led to the drowning pools.

Then came the winter the laird rode south and did not come back. The snow closed the pass. Nell kept coming down each evening to the gate and sitting on the cold step where his grey horse used to wait, facing the road he had taken, her head turned sharp over her shoulder as if she were calling the flock to order. The ewes grew fat on the hill grass and the lambs came in spring. Nobody had the heart to move her.

So when you walk up here in the morning and see her shape on the wall, keep your eyes on the road too. She is still waiting for someone to come home over the hill, and she still believes they will. Mind the step, it's slick with dew.