Black ornamental drawing of a seated dog filled with tribal-style linework and dotwork patterns on a cream background, shown as a tattoo design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal-patterned seated dog design

Black and grey · Flash

A seated dog with large upright ears faces forward, its outline and body filled with dense black patterns. The linework combines bold swirls, zigzags, dotted fills and spiral motifs, leaving small areas of cream showing through on the face, chest and legs. The design is shown flat on a plain cream background with no shading or colour.

Dog Pattern Ornamental Swirl Spiral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marian,

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The dog came back again last night, the small one with the enormous ears, sitting bolt upright by the lift on Ward Six as if he had booked it. Nobody owns him. The porters say he came in on the ambulance from Hartsholme with a lady who didn't make it through the first hour, and that he has sat on that same square of lino ever since, waiting for the doors to open. Dr Patel says we should ring the RSPCA. Sister Dunne says he's to be left alone and fed from the staff fridge, which is how he has come to eat better than the rest of us.

At three I found him asleep with one ear folded under his chin and the other standing straight, catching the hum of the vending machine. I sat down beside him with my flask. He didn't stir. Around half past, a man in Bay Four pressed his call bell for the hundredth time, and the dog lifted his head and looked down the corridor as if he knew the sound.

I keep thinking about his coat. Every curl and zigzag is black on cream, and the blank patches are where the light gets in: the chest, the bridge of the nose, the front paws. The night porter says it looks like a map of the ward, and I suppose it does, if you know where the lifts are.

Last night the doors opened and the lady's daughter stepped out, searching for her mother's bag. The dog got up, walked straight to her and leaned his whole weight against her knees. She didn't know him. She stroked his ears anyway. I wanted to tell you it was the kindest thing I've seen all month, but you'd only say I'm going soft, and you'd be right.

Love, Jo