Paw Print Quotes

People leave imprints on our lives, shaping who we become in much the same way that a symbol is pressed into the page of a book to tell you who it comes from. Dogs, however, leave paw prints on our lives and our souls, which are as unique as fingerprints in every way.

Yes you're getting your tattoo." I threw my arms around Dad's neck. "Thank you!" "Hey," Mom said. "I'm the one who had to persuade him it wasn't turning his little girl into a streetwalker." "I never said that," Dad said. "No?" I said. "Cool. Cause I've decided to skip the paw print. I'm thinking of a tramp stamp with flames that says 'Hot in Here.' No wait. Arrows. For directionally challenged guys

A dog is not a thing. A thing is replaceable. A dog is not. A thing is disposable. A dog is not. A thing doesn’t have a heart. A dog’s heart is bigger than any “thing” you can ever own.

Whoever declared that love at first sight doesn’t exist has never witnessed the purity of a puppy or looked deep into a puppy’s eyes. If they did, their lives would change considerably.

I used to have a cat, an old fighting tom, who would jump through the open window by my bed in the middle of the night and land on my chest. I'd half-awaken. He'd stick his skull under my nose and purr, stinking of urine and blood. Some nights he kneaded my bare chest with his front paws, powerfully, arching his back, as if sharpening his claws, or pummeling a mother for milk. And some mornings I'd wake in daylight to find my body covered with paw prints in blood; I looked as though I'd been painted with roses.

Helen leaned down over her husband and ran her lips lightly across his bare shoulder in good-bye. Maybe, someday, she would find him by the River Styx. There, they could wash all their hateful memories away, and walk into a new life together, a life that didn’t have the dirty paw prints of a dozen gods and a dozen kings marring it. Such a beautiful thought. Helen vowed that she would live a hundred lives of hardship for one life—one real life—with Paris. They could be shepherds, just as they had dreamed once when they had met at the great lighthouse long ago. She’d be anything, really, a shopkeeper, or a farmer, whatever, as long as they were allowed to live their lives and each other freely. She dressed quickly, imagining herself tending a shop somewhere by the sea, hoping that someday this dream would come true.

We're all on our own, aren't we? That's what it boils down to. We come into this world on our own- in Hawaii, as I did, or New York, or China, or Africa or Montana- and we leave it in the same way, on our own, wherever we happen to be at the time- in a plane, in our beds, in a car, in a space shuttle, or in a field of flowers. And between those times, we try to connect along the way with others who are also on their own. If we're lucky, we have a mother who reads to us. We have a teacher or two along the way who make us feel special. We have dogs who do the stupid dog tricks we teach them and who lie on our bed when we're not looking, because it smells like us, and so we pretend not to notice the paw prints on the bedspread. We have friends who lend us their favorite books. Maybe we have children, and grandchildren, and funny mailmen and eccentric great-aunts, and uncles who can pull pennies out of their ears. All of them teach us stuff. They teach us about combustion engines and the major products of Bolivia, and what poems are not boring, and how to be kind to each other, and how to laugh, and when the vigil is in our hands, and when we have to make the best of things even though it's hard sometimes. Looking back together, telling our stories to one another, we learn how to be on our own.

There will always be detours in the fascinating game called life. Find the path to your heart’s desires, and stay on course.

Snowlight, moonlight, a confusion of paw-prints.

For quite a while, Francie had been spelling out letters, sounding them and then putting the sounds together to mean a word. But one day, she looked at a page and the word "mouse" had instantaneous meaning. She looked at the word, and the picture of a gray mouse scampered through her mind. She looked further and when she saw "horse," she heard him pawing the ground and saw the sun glint on his glossy coat. The word "running" hit her suddenly and she breathed hard as though running herself. The barrier between the individual sound of each letter and the whole meaning of the word was removed and the printed word meant a thing at one quick glance. She read a few pages rapidly and almost became ill with excitement. She wanted to shout it out. She could read! She could read!

Oh land of farms and green hills mild Once formed by giants rough and wild With massive paws they gripped and tore With one great rip they formed the shore Where heavy boots left prints so deep Blue lakes remain 'tween summits steep The giants fought beneath our skies And from their bones our mountains rise

We are sorry, child. We did not mean to love you so well. This was a truth I hadn’t understood until now. You see, nothing good can come from being loved by old gods. Their love of mortals turns them neglectful and petty. When they move on, they lay waste in their path—cicada wings and bear paw prints, sacs of spider silk, echoes and anemone, the limbs of lovers now rendered to stars.

If one’s argument for civilization holds that wild predators should never roam in broad daylight through the boroughs of America’s largest, loudest, most radically urban metropolis, then, truly, the end of civilization had arrived on paw prints in the snow.

You left paw prints on my heart.

Low ceiling, stone walls, a dirt floor stamped with paw prints. I never go in without announcing myself. 'Hyaa!' I yell. 'Hyaa. Hyaa!' It's the sound my father makes when entering his toolshed, the cry of cowboys as they round up dogies, and it suggests a certain degree of authority. Snakes, bats, weasels --it's time to head up and move on out.

My home is a red desert that trembles with spirits and bones. There are two reasons I came here: my father's death, and the lion man who prowled my dreams. Perhaps it was coincidence, but a man--half wild, ravenous beyond words--slid from the dream world into the mud of the waking one the same year my father left this world for another. Ghosts. Paw prints. I have tried to stay put.

The past scampers like an alleycat through the present, leaving the paw prints of memories scattered helter-skelter—here ink is smeared on a page, there lies an old photograph with a chewed corner, elsewhere still, a nest has been made of old newspapers, the headlines running one into the other to make strange declarations.

Life, how I have dreaded you," said Rhoda, "oh, human beings, how I have hated you! How you have nudged, how you have interrupted, how hideous you have looked in Oxford Street, how squalid sitting opposite each other staring in the Tube! Now as I climb this mountain, from the top of which I shall see Africa, my mind is printed with brown-paper parcels and your faces. I have been stained by you and corrupted. You smelt so unpleasant, too, lining up outside doors to buy tickets. All were dressed in indeterminate shades of grey and brown, never even a blue feather pinned to a hat. None had the courage to be one thing rather than another. What dissolution of the soul you demanded in order to get through one day, what lies, bowings, scrapings, fluency and servility! How you changed me to one spot, one hour, one chair, and sat yourselves down opposite! How you snatched from me the white spaces that lie between hour and hour and rolled them into dirty pellets and tossed them into wastepaper baskets with your greasy paws. Yet those were my life.

The cake that launched a thousand hips

Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can read printed words! For quite a while, Francie had been spelling out letters, sounding them and then putting the sounds together to mean a word. But, one day, she looked at a page and the word "mouse" had instantaneous meaning. She looked at the word, and a picture of a gray mouse scampered through her mind. She looked further and when she saw "horse," she heard him pawing the ground and saw the sun glint on his glossy coat. The word "running" hit her suddenly and she breathed hard as though running herself. The barrier between he individual sound of each letter and the whole meaning of the word was removed and the printed word meant a thing at one quick glance. She read a few pages rapidly and almost became ill with excitement. She wanted to shout it out. She could read! She could read! From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came to adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.

Can’t track wolves, not really.” “Then how do you find them?” “You don’t. You leave them be.” I slumped, disappointed. He watched me sideways. “All right then, I’ll tell you a secret. But you must use it for good. Do you promise?” “Yes.” “There is no tracking a wolf,” Dad said. “They are cleverer than we are. So instead you track its prey.” We grinned at each other. I couldn’t stop thinking about that solitary paw print. “How’d it move with no tracks like that?” “The infinite mystery of wolves,” Dad replied, and I decided then that I would discover the creature’s secrets.

Spilt, glistering milk of moonlight on the frost-crisped grass; on such a night, in moony, metamorphic weather, they say you might easily find him, if you had been foolish enough to venture out late, scuttling along by the churchyard wall with half a juicy torso slung across his back. The white light scours the fields and scours them again until everything gleams and he will leave paw-prints in the hoar-frost when he runs howling round the graves at night in his lupine fiestas.

The line of paw prints behind the armadillo began to weave back and forth across the road. Oliver reached down and scooped his familiar up in his arms. "I can still walk," said the armadillo." Oliver didn't say anything. Armadillos have their dignity. After a few moments, his familiar rested his armored cheek against Olivers own and sighed.

A slow smile spread across his lips as his gaze left my face and raked my body up and down. The guy seemed to be mentally undressing me. As quickly as he mentally removed my clothing, I mentally replaced them with unappealing apparel. An argyle cardigan. A loose jumpsuit. A floral-print muumuu.

Natasha started to take notice. My sleepiness was good for rudeness to visitors to the gallery, but not for signing for packages or noticing if someone had come in with a dog and tracked paw prints all over the floor, which happened a few times. There were a few spilled lattes. MFA students touching paintings, once even rearranging an installation of shattered CD jewel cases in a Jarrod Harvey installation to spell out the word “HACK.” When I noticed it, I just shuffled the shards of plastic around, no one the wiser. But when a homeless woman set herself up in the back room one afternoon, Natasha found out. I’d had no idea how long the woman had been there. Maybe people thought she was part of the artwork. I ended up paying her fifty bucks out of petty cash to leave. Natasha couldn’t hide her irritation.

I could not now say when I first grew to love the wild, only that I did, and that a need for it will always remain strong in me. As a child, whenever I read the word, it conjured images of wide spaces, remote and figureless. Isolated islands off Atlantic coasts. Unbounded forests, and blue snow-light falling on to drifts marked with the paw-prints of wolves. Frost-shattered summits and corries holding lochs of great depth. And this was the vision of a wild place that had stayed with me: somewhere boreal, wintry, vast, isolated, elemental, demanding of the traveller in its asperities. To reach a wild place was, for me, to step outside human history.

He spent the morning at the beach. He had no idea which one, just some open stretch of coastline reaching out to the sea. An unbroken mantle of soft grey clouds was sitting low over the water. Only on the horizon was there a glimmer of light, a faint blue band of promise. The beach was deserted, not another soul on the vast, wide expanse of sand that stretched out in front of him. Having come from the city, it never ceased to amaze Jejeune that you could be that alone in the world. He walked along the beach, feeling the satisfying softness as the sand gave way beneath his slow deliberate strides. He ventured as close to the tide line as he dared, the white noise of the waves breaking on the shingles. A set of paw prints ran along the sand, with an unbroken line in between. A small dog, dragging a stick in its mouth. Always the detective, even if, these days, he wasn’t a very good one. Jejeune’s path became blocked by a narrow tidal creek carrying its silty cargo out to the sea. On each side of it were shallow lagoons and rock pools. When the tide washed in they would teem with new life, but at the moment they looked barren and empty. Jejeune looked inland, back to where the dark smudge of Corsican pines marked the edge of the coast road. He traced the creek’s sinuous course back to where it emerged from a tidal salt flat, and watched the water for a long time as it eddied and churned, meeting the incoming tide in an erotic swirl of water, the fresh intermingling with the salty in a turbulent, roiling dance, until it was no longer possible to tell one from the other. He looked out at the sea, at the motion, the color, the light. A Black-headed Gull swooped in and settled on a piece of driftwood a few feet away. Picture complete, thought Jejeune. For him, a landscape by itself, no matter how beautiful, seemed an empty thing. It needed a flicker of life, a tiny quiver of existence, to validate it, to confirm that other living things found a home here, too. Side by side, they looked out over the sea, the man and the bird, two beating hearts in this otherwise empty landscape, with no connection beyond their desire to be here, at this time. Was it the birds that attracted him to places like this, he wondered, or the solitude, the absence of demands, of expectations? But if Jejeune was unsure of his own motives, he knew this bird would have a purpose in being here. Nature always had her reasons. He chanced a sidelong glance at the bird, now settled to his presence. It had already completed its summer molt, crisp clean feathers having replaced the ones abraded by the harsh demands of eking out a living on this wild, windswept coastline. The gull stayed for a long moment, allowing Jejeune to rest his eyes softly, unthreateningly, upon it. And then, as if deciding it had allowed him enough time to appreciate its beauty, the bird spread its wings and effortlessly lifted off, wheeling on the invisible air currents, drifting away over the sea toward the horizon. p. 282-3

Ellie goes back to the kitchen . . . and screams bloody murder. “Nooooooo!” Adrenaline spikes through me and I dart to the kitchen, ready to fight. Until I see the cause of her screaming. “Bosco, noooooo!” It’s the rodent-dog. He got into the kitchen, somehow managed to hoist himself up onto the counter, and is in the process of demolishing his fourth pie. Fucking Christ, it’s impressive how fast he ate them. That a mutt his size could even eat that many. His stomach bulges with his ill-gotten gains—like a snake that ingested a monkey. A big one. “Thieving little bastard!” I yell. Ellie scoops him off the counter and I point my finger in his face. “Bad dog.” The little twat just snarls back. Ellie tosses the mongrel on the steps that lead up to the apartment and slams the door. Then we both turn and assess the damage. Two apple and a cherry are completely devoured, he nibbled at the edge of a peach and apple crumb and left tiny paw-prints in two lemon meringues. “We’re going to have re-bake all seven,” Ellie says. I fold my arms across my chest. “Looks that way.” “It’ll take hours,” she says. “Yeah.” “But we have to. There isn’t any other choice.” Silence follows. Heavy, meaningful silence. I glance sideways at Ellie, and she’s already peeking over at me. “Or . . . is there?” she asks slyly. I look at what remains of the damaged pastries, considering all the options. “If we slice off the chewed bits . . .” “And smooth out the meringue . . .” “Put the licked ones in the oven to dry out . . .” “Are you two out of your motherfucking minds?” I swing around to find Marty standing in the alley doorway behind us. Eavesdropping and horrified. Ellie tries to cover for us. But she’s bad at it. “Marty! When did you get here? We weren’t gonna do anything wrong.” Covert ops are not in her future. “Not anything wrong?” he mimics, stomping into the room. “Like getting us shut down by the goddamn health department? Like feeding people dog-drool pies—have you no couth?” “It was just a thought,” Ellie swears—starting to laugh. “A momentary lapse in judgment,” I say, backing her up. “We’re just really tired and—” “And you’ve been in this kitchen too long.” He points to the door. “Out you go.” When we don’t move, he goes for the broom. “Go on—get!” Ellie grabs her knapsack and I guide her out the back door as Marty sweeps at us like we’re vermin

Oh, magic hour when a child first knows it can read printed words! For quite a while, Francie had been spelling out letters, sounding them and then putting the sounds together to mean a word. But one day, she looked at a page and the word “mouse” had instantaneous meaning. She looked at the word and the picture of the gray mouse scampered through her mind. She looked further and when she saw “horse”, she heard him pawing at the ground and saw the sun glint on his glossy coat. The word “running” hit her suddenly and she breathed hard as though running herself. The barrier between the individual sound of each letter and the whole meaning of the word was removed sound of each letter and the printed word meant a thing at one quick glance. She read a few pages rapidly and almost became ill with excitement. She wanted to shout it out. She could read! She could read! From that time on, the world was hers for the reading, She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was a poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel the closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.

Fortunately the Omanis are generally very friendly and in no time at all, I had a knight in shining white dishdasha offering to help me.

It’s hard to sleep that night. Our sofa’s got more lumps than bean soup, and every time I turn over, I pull out the blanket from the bottom. I get up about two in the morning and stand at the window. Moon’s almost full, and the snow sparkles like diamonds. I’m not lookin’ for moonlight or snowlight, though—only Shiloh. We keep the shed door open on nights like this so he can go in there and sleep if he comes back late. But I know my dog; he’d make at least one detour up on the porch first to see if somebody was awake to let him in. Not a fresh paw print anywhere. I’m thinking of the hunters we heard up in our woods. Deer season’s over now, but there’s possum and coon to hunt; rabbit and groundhog, too. What if a hunter took it in his head to steal Shiloh? You ride along and see notices posted on trees about a dog missing, and most of the time

We had been looking at some land adjoining the zoo and decided to purchase it in order to expand. There was a small house on the new property, nothing too grand, just a modest home built of brick, with three bedrooms and one bathroom. We liked the seclusion of the place most of all. The builder had tucked it in behind a macadamia orchard, but it was still right next door to the zoo. We could be part of the zoo yet apart from it at the same time. Perfect. “Make this house exactly the way you want it,” Steve told me. “This is going to be our home.” He dedicated himself to getting us moved in. I knew this would be our last stop. We wouldn’t be moving again. We laid new carpet and linoleum and installed reverse-cycle air-conditioning and heat. Ah, the luxury of having a climate-controlled house. I installed stained-glass windows in the bathroom with wildlife-themed panes, featuring a jabiru, a crocodile, and a big goanna. We also used wildlife tiles throughout, of dingoes, whales, and kangaroos. We made the house our own. We worked on the exterior grounds as well. Steve transplanted palm trees from his parents’ place on the Queensland coast and erected fences for privacy. He designed a circular driveway. As he laid the concrete, he put his own footprints and handprints in the wet cement. Then he ran into the house to fetch Bindi and me. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s all do it.” We grabbed Sui, too, and put her paw prints in, and then did Bindi, who was just eight months old. It took a couple of tries, but we got her handprints and her footprints as well, and then my own. We stood back and admired the time capsule we had created. That afternoon the rains came. The Sunshine Coast is usually bright and dry, but when it rains, the heavens open. We worried about all the concrete we had worked on getting pitted and ruined. “Get something,” Steve shouted, scrambling to gather up his tools. I ran into the house. I couldn’t find a plastic drop cloth quickly enough, so I grabbed one of my best sheets off the bed. As I watched the linen turn muddy and gray in the rain, I consoled myself. In the future I won’t care that I ruined the sheet, I thought. I’ll just be thankful that I preserved our footprints and handprints. “It’s our cave,” Steve said of our new home. We never entertained. The zoo was our social place. Living so close by, we could have easily gotten overwhelmed, so we made it a practice never to have people over. It wasn’t unfriendliness, it was simple self-preservation. Our brick residence was for our family: Steve and me, Bindi, Sui, and Shasta.

Like a tiger clamping down and shaking a deer's throat, the wind bit and clawed at the forest. It swam through the trees by night and down the beach at dawn. It swept across the beach, working up a dusty blue storm, and the ocean took a deep breath to hold back its anger. New tracks appeared where the wind had been. Living, breathing life could be found at the end of these traces. On the sandy beach as clean as the beginning of time, a single line of flower-shaped paw prints appeared.

Ty raised his left hand to show the scars. “He has a paw print on each shoulder too,” Zane told them, sounding almost proud of the fact.

The Intelligence Professionals Weigh In As the public has come to learn about more cyber-attacks, numerous officials and cyber security experts have weighed in on the possibility of Russian interference on the 2016 election cycle. Numerous intelligence officials, government, and cyber security experts alike, weighed in on possible Russian involvement. They overwhelmingly agreed that though more evidence is needed, the CYBER BEARS paw prints are all over the hacks.

It was the calypso Christmas music coming from inside the house that set him off. Eyes wide, Ronnie watched the King of the Jungle shimmy his lion ass around on some poor human’s lawn. They’d never understand those paw prints come morning. Ronnie’s head tilted to the side. Is he…? Yup. He was doing the mambo. Paws crossing over paws. Head bopping to the beat. Thick, regal mane waving in the cold December air. He actually wasn’t too bad. For a big cat doing the mambo. Rubbing her eyes, Ronnie realized she had to focus.

Happy birthday, dear Maria,” sang Lizzie, along with everyone else. “Happy birthday to you!” Lizzie gave Maria a special smile as she sang. There were a lot of kids at the party — almost everybody in their class was there — but everyone knew that Lizzie Peterson and Maria Santiago were best friends. They sat next to each other in class, played on the same kickball team at recess, and always ate lunch together. They had the same favorite color (purple) and the same lucky number (eight). They both loved fudge ripple ice cream, cool socks, snowstorms, and reading. Most of all, Lizzie and Maria loved animals. That was why Maria had decided to have her birthday party at Caring Paws, the animal shelter where she and Lizzie both volunteered. It was Lizzie’s idea: she had gotten all excited when she had read about a boy who had his party at a shelter. “Instead of presents,” she’d told Maria, “everybody brought donations for the animals.” Maria wasn’t so sure at first. “Why don’t you do it for your birthday?” she’d asked Lizzie. “I will, but mine’s not for months and yours is coming right up. I know your real birthday isn’t until Monday, but we can have the party on Saturday. Come on, it’ll be fun! We can play animal-themed games, and decorate the meeting room with colorful paw prints, and have a dog bone–shaped cake, and everything.” Lizzie was full of ideas, and she could be very convincing. “It’s a great Caring Club activity, too. Think of all the donations you’ll get for the shelter. Ms. Dobbins will be very happy.” Ms. Dobbins was the shelter’s director. When Lizzie had started the Caring Club, Maria had been one of the first to join. Caring Club was for kids who loved animals and wanted to help them. Maria’s favorite animals were horses. She loved to ride, and she spent a lot of time at the stable. Lizzie had gone with her a few times, and had even taken riding lessons for a while, but she had never learned to love horses as much as she loved dogs. Lizzie really, really loved dogs. In fact, Lizzie was dog-crazy.

In this blog post, we will explore the latest trends in dog themed clothing for humans and provide some tips on how to rock them with confidence.

The tracks led along the stream, down the meadow, past the fir copse until the two children came in sight of the sea. Kitty pulled up. The paw-prints had stopped at the beach. She glanced to the cliffs at each side of the sandy bay, past the farthest point of the headlands toward Bird Island. She dismounted and went forward, leading Dapple to the smugglers’ path, the track which zig-zagged down the cliff to the cover. Although the incoming tide had obviously washed away some paw-prints, Kitty could still see some plainly marked in the sand which the waves had not yet reached.

Shadow vaulted from the car, and cleared the sprawled figure with one joyous leap. He found September’s scent, and hop-scotched and bulldozed through snow so deep it scraped his belly. But the bloody paw prints left in his wake spelled a message of fear, hope, and determination that only good-dogs could read.

Better not stick around or I might ask you to join me.” Rafe chuckled. “If I thought you were serious, I’d take you up on that. I was just coming in to do a better job washing up. There wasn’t any water at your place and my cuts and scrapes are filthy. Guess it’ll have to wait.” He waved for me to continue. When I arched my brows, he motioned to us, then to the shower. He wanted us in the shower, where no one could hear our conversation. Which was a little extreme. And extremely awkward. He’d given me a lead-in, though, so I used it. “No, you really should get them cleaned,” I said. “And I should take a look at them. I suppose we can accomplish both if you keep your shorts on…and keep your hands to yourself.” He grinned. “Fine by me.” I turned my back and took off my jeans and socks. When I’d finished, he was climbing into the shower. While the view was very nice, my gaze went to his shoulder, to the paw-print birthmark there, a mirror image of the one on my hip. I hadn’t told him about my first shift to cat form. Now, suddenly, I wanted to. Really wanted to. I wanted to share that with him, see his reaction, tease him about beating him to it and hear his laugh-- He turned and waved me into the shower with him. He backed up to give me room, but it was a shower stall--not much room to be had. The hot water beat down, soaking through my shirt. I leaned back into it, forgetting Rafe as I luxuriated in the feeling of hot, clean water. When I opened my eyes, he was watching me. Really watching me. I looked at the water pounding off his lean chest, trickling down to his soaked boxers, and…and I wasn’t thinking it’d be nice to lean over and give him a chaste kiss. Really wasn’t.

Ah, comrade, thought the Count. Now, there was a word for the ages... When the Count was a boy in St. Petersburg, one rarely bumped into it. It was always prowling at the back of a mill or under the table in a tavern, occasionally leaving its paw marks on the freshly printed pamphlets that were drying on a basement floor. Now, thirty years later, it was the most commonly heard word in the Russian language. A wonder of semantic efficiency, comrade could be used as a greeting, or a word of parting. As a congratulations, or a caution. As a call to action, or a remonstrance. Or it could simply be the means of securing someone’s attention in the crowded lobby of a grand hotel. And thanks to the word’s versatility, the Russian people had finally been able to dispense with tired formalities, antiquated titles, bothersome idioms—even names! Where else in all of Europe could one shout a single word to hail any of one’s countrymen be they male or female, young or old, friend or foe?

the paw of a naughty fox creeping dangerously behind the hurried foot print of a startled hen.

Cats leave paw prints in your heart forever and always.

found that by copying the distinctive prints and scratches made by other animals we could gain a new power; here was a method of identifying with the other animal, taking on its expressive magic in order to learn of its whereabouts, to draw it near, to make it appear. Tracing the impression left by a deer’s body in the snow, or transferring that outline onto the wall of the cave: these are ways of placing oneself in distant contact with the Other, whether to invoke its influence or to exert one’s own. Perhaps by multiplying its images on the cavern wall we sought to ensure that the deer itself would multiply, be bountiful in the coming season…. All of the early writing systems of our species remain tied to the mysteries of a more-than-human world. The petroglyphs of pre-Columbian North America abound with images of prey animals, of rain clouds and lightning, of eagle and snake, of the paw prints of bear. On rocks, canyon walls, and caves these figures mingle with human shapes, or shapes part human and part Other (part insect, or owl, or elk.) Some researchers assert that the picture writing of native North America is not yet “true” writing, even where the pictures are strung together sequentially—as they are, obviously, in many of the rock inscriptions (as well as in the calendrical “winter counts” of the Plains tribes). For there seems, as yet, no strict relation between image and utterance. In a much more conventionalized pictographic system, like the Egyptian hieroglyphics (which first appeared during the First Dynasty, around 3000 B.C.E. and remained in use until the second century C.E.),4 stylized images of humans and human implements are still interspersed with those of plants, of various kinds of birds, as well as of serpents, felines, and other animals. Such pictographic systems, which were to be found as well in China as early as the fifteenth century B.C.E., and in Mesoamerica by the middle of the sixth century B.C.E., typically include characters that scholars have

Tapping rubber was hazardous work, Soldado explained, rife with danger. There were índios bravos in the woods, not to mention aggressive, venomous snakes. And jaguars. One time he went to visit the station of a fellow rubber tapper and found it vacant. “His ladder was kicked over,” Soldado said in his low, deadpan voice. “His bucket was turned over. Latex was splashed on the ground like spilled milk.” Jaguar paw prints the size of a human hand led away into the forest, where he and his neighbors found the beast seated triumphantly on the body, the man’s throat ripped open, head devoured, stomach spilling innards. The animal bolted, and when the men tracked it down and finally shot it, they found their friend’s hair lodged in its teeth. “That jaguar came right up into the tree after him,” Soldado said, dread seeming to strangle his voice, as though it’d happened only yesterday.

Some dogs come into our lives but do not stay. We don't understand the reason why but the dog does. Some stay for awhile and leave paw prints on our hearts. Some arrive unexpectedly to fill a need in our lives. Our job is to let it happen.

I remember the cat snarling. I remember Daniel backing up. And I remember Rafe, lying on the ground, saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay” over and over in this calm voice, completely calm, like he didn’t even see the cougar. The cat backed up, getting closer and closer to Rafe and he didn’t move a muscle and I remember thinking, “She’s protecting him,” which was crazy, but that’s what I thought. Then the world blinked, and my legs gave way. As I went down, Daniel ran toward me, and I opened my mouth to shout for him not to turn his back on the cat, but she was already twisting away. I don’t remember anything else. No, that’s a lie. I remember one more thing. I remember the cougar turning away and I remember what I saw on her flank. A dark patch of fur in the shape of a paw print.

Days were long; nights longer. The streets, empty of tourists, were replenished by returning wildlife. Bighorn sheep stood in the parking lot of Hunter’s Coffee Shop and licked dirt off the hubcaps of parked cars. Deer meandered down Main Street and caused unexpected traffic jams. Even the cougars returned, slinking through night time gardens and leaving oversized paw prints in soft soil.

some paw prints on the sidewalk. Something that might help us figure out which way

You’re getting your tattoo.” I threw my arms around Dad’s neck. “Thank you!” “Hey,” Mom said. “I’m the one who had to persuade him it wasn’t going to turn his little girl into a streetwalker.” “I never said that,” Dad said. “No?” I said. “Cool. Cause I’ve decided to skip the paw print. I’m thinking of a tramp stamp with flames that says ‘Hot in Here.’ No, wait. Arrows. For directionally challenged guys.” Mom grabbed Dad’s shoulders and steered him away from me. “She’ll get exactly what we agreed on. Now go hang out in a guy store and we’ll call when we’re done.

You’re getting your tattoo.” I threw my arms around Dad’s neck. “Thank you!” “Hey,” Mom said. “I’m the one who had to persuade him it wasn’t going to turn his little girl into a streetwalker.” “I never said that,” Dad said. “No?” I said. “Cool. Cause I’ve decided to skip the paw print. I’m thinking of a tramp stamp with flames that says ‘Hot in Here.’ No, wait. Arrows. For directionally challenged guys.” Mom grabbed Dad’s shoulders and steered him away from me. “She’ll get exactly what we agreed on. Now go hang out in a guy store and we’ll call when we’re done.” “This is so cool,” I said loudly as Dad walked away. “Have you met the tattoo artist? Is he hot?” “He’s a she,” Mom said. “Is she hot? Cause I’m still young, you know. My sexual identity isn’t fully formed.” “Your father can’t hear you anymore, Maya.” Mom sighed. “Poor guy. Why can’t you be a normal teenage daughter who’d sooner die than say the words ‘sexual identity’ in front of him?” “You guys raised me right. You should be proud.

This has your paw-prints all over it, Marrok.”  Richardson loomed over him.  “You’ve always had it in for Dow.” “We have religious differences.”  Marrok allowed.  “I want him to rot in hell and he disagrees.