Split image showing a colourful painted-style dachshund tattoo on a calf and a small black paw print tattoo on a wrist, next to a smiling golden retriever.

Dachshund on calf and paw print on wrist

Calf · Mixed · Photo

This split image shows two tattoos. On the left, a dachshund is rendered in blue, violet and turquoise with soft, blended shading and bold dark outlines on the ears, set on a lower leg. On the right, a small solid black paw print sits on the inner wrist of a hand touching a smiling golden retriever in front of a pale brick wall.

Calf Forearm Dog Paw print Hand

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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

Dear Ysolde, the dog came back from the menders this morning, wrapped in brown paper and smelling of linseed, and I have not stopped looking at it since. Mr Okonedo at the bindery on Harbour Road swears the blue on the ears is the same blue as the old tram tickets, the ones nobody has printed since the grid went quiet. I told him a dachshund was never that colour in life. He said that was exactly why it was worth keeping.

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It is a painted tin sign, long and low, the kind that hung over the door of the shop when there were still shops with dogs for sale. Violet patches run down its back like weather, turquoise under the belly, and the eyes are two round blue dots that look hopeful about everything. Your great-aunt Mae painted it the summer she was nineteen, with a brush she borrowed from the ferryman's wife. Beside the door, at the height of a child's hand, there is still a small black paw print pressed into the plaster, where Bramble walked across the wet render the day before anyone thought to stop him.

Mae never let anyone repaint the print. She said the wall had already decided what it wanted to keep. When the roof came in last winter, the sign was the only thing I carried out before the rain, and I left the print behind under a sheet of glass, which is the least I could do for a dog who never once asked permission.

I am sending the sign to you on the coast train with the menders' receipt tucked in the frame. Hang it where the morning light reaches first, so the blue can do what Mae meant it to do. Write and tell me if the dog still looks hopeful. Yours, Nan.