Most of us step over stones without a second glance. Akie Nakata picks them up, turns them over in her hands, and waits to see who's inside. The self-taught Japanese artist, known online as Stone Artist Akie, has been collecting stones since childhood, but her painting career began in 2011, when a pebble she spotted on a riverbank looked remarkably like a rabbit.

The process starts long before the first brushstroke. Akie gathers stones along the riverbanks of Saitama, northwest of Tokyo, and never reshapes them. The artist paints the animal that she feels is inside the stone, following its natural curves and ridges as if they were a backbone. Working only with acrylic gouache and tiny brushes, without any pens, the artist adds eyes, noses, and fur so convincingly that the finished pieces look like real animals curled up in someone's palm. They're famously hard to get, too: pieces listed for sale on her Facebook page have been known to sell out within a minute.

This time we've gathered 30 of her dog-themed works, from sleepy puppies to familiar breeds with very convincing expressions. Scroll down and tell us in the comments which little stone dog you'd want to take home.

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