Cartoon dog in a flower garden looking up at a patterned butterfly above a picket fence.

Happy Garden Dog Watching a Butterfly

A shaggy dog in a patterned bandana sits among daisies, roses, tulips, and leafy stems, gazing up at a butterfly.

🎨 How to color it

Color the shaggy dog honey gold, the bandana cherry red with teal patches, the roses pink, and the big butterfly orange with black-edged wings. Use sharp colored pencils for the tiny wing spots, flower centers, and bandana shapes, then switch to broader strokes for the dog’s fluffy coat. Try making the fence a pale blue-gray so the warm dog, bright flowers, and butterfly feel like the secret stars of the garden.

The story behind this coloring page

Tulla Shares the Wing-Song — Behind the nursery fence, the border stayed stubbornly green while every other bed rang with bees. Read the full story →

Behind the nursery fence, the border stayed stubbornly green while every other bed rang with bees. Tulla pawed the cool dirt, sniffing for bulbs, seeds, anything, because she wanted one bloom to open before the moon climbed the shed roof. A papery flutter passed her ear. On a butterfly’s wings, the spots were not spots at all, but tiny closed mouths.

“Sing it out,” whispered the butterfly, and tucked one wing into a tulip cup where nobody ever thought to look. Tulla pressed her nose close. From inside came a hum like lemonade fizz, and the mouths opened—la, la, leaf, la, rose! The sound shook through daisies, tulips, and curled rosebuds until color popped along the fence.

Tulla barked once, then twice, because joy that big would burst if kept in one chest. Ever since, butterflies carry patterns so gardens can remember their songs; next time you see those wing-spots, listen for the border that first rang behind the nursery fence.