Two bare feet with black paw print tattoos on the soles, painted toenails, and a small dark mark above each heel.

Paw print tattoos on the soles of both feet

Other · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows two bare feet raised towards the camera, with a paw print tattoo on each sole. The prints are made of solid dark grey or black shapes with a large pad and smaller toe pads, and there are small dark marks near the ankles. The ink is black and grey, the toenails are painted black, and the warm, slightly faded lighting sits against a plain beige wall.

Other Paw print Feet Toe Nail polish Animal print

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The dog you asked about is not lost. Last Tuesday I walked up past the tarn with Bess and found the prints you described, big as a saucer in the frost, four toes and a pad like a thumbprint pressed into bread. They came down off the scree, crossed the beck at the stepping stones, and then stopped dead at the wall. Whatever made them had sat there a long while and then gone back the way it came, pressing its heels in, which is what foxes do when they want the hunt to think they have gone on.

You will remember I taught you to walk the fells heel to toe so your own tracks did not give you away. Your father hated that lesson. He said a man should walk like a man. I told him the hare does not care what a man should do.

So I went after the marks with my hands in my pockets and my eyes on the ground, the way my mother taught me in the Scar. Half a mile on, the prints turned into a sheep track and vanished among fifty others. But by the old byre I found a small thing: a single print set down the wrong way round, toes to the wall, as if someone had walked backwards to fool the men coming up from the village with their lamps.

I left it alone. Come up at the thaw and see for yourself. Bring the good boots, walk the way I showed you, and when you find the paw that points home, say nothing to anyone.

Your loving Gran, Nan Pattinson