Colour tattoo of a brown dachshund on a green-tailed balloon string, with grass tufts beneath, on the top of a foot.

Dachshund with a green balloon on the foot

Other · Mixed · Photo

A brown dachshund walks along a line of dark grass tufts, its lead rising to a green balloon above its head. The linework is black and fairly bold, with soft brown and green shading inside the outlines. The design sits small and centred on the top of the foot against a pale background.

Other Dog Balloon Grass

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The long dog came down to the harbour every morning behind Tomas the balloon seller, and nobody in Porthgarrow could say where it slept. It had a body like a loaf and legs as short as clothes pegs, and it went along the cliff path so low that the marram grass brushed its belly. Tomas tied a green balloon to the end of its lead with kite string, because the gulls had taken to the red ones and he could not afford to lose another.

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The fishermen laughed at him. They said a dog that long would never get its nose out of the wind, and that the balloon would only haul the creature up the cliff and drop it in the sea. Tomas only nodded and fed the dog pilchard heads from his own tin. The dog did not chase gulls or boats. It walked the length of the breakwater, stopped where the grass grew thick between the stones, and looked out past the lighthouse at the empty water.

One November the boats came back late. The storm had driven them out past the Mare Rock, and the women stood on the wall with their shawls pulled tight. Tomas was too old for the cliff path, so the dog went alone. Nobody saw it go. They only saw the green balloon come bobbing over the headland at dusk, the string held taut in the dog's teeth as if it were towing something home.

The boats came in on the next tide, all eleven of them, and the women said the balloon had shown them the way. The dog still walks the breakwater each morning, and when the boats are out it lies in the grass with its nose on its paws. The balloon is long gone. The string is still tied to the iron ring at the foot of the harbour steps.