Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

We do have an interesting household to say the least. 4 puppies, too many fishes, and over the years flying squirrels, birdie hatchlings and the like.

I’m sure it stems from H’s father’s affection and care fro animals growing up. She had some interesting “pets” growing up, although they were probably more research projects for her family than pets, but what can you say to someone who had a pet raccoon as a kid.

So it should come as no surprise that we had adopted a toad in our garage. Mr. Toad would come out, usually at night, and find his way to the back door just outside our garage, or be sitting just inside the garage door looking for flies or whatever may have come his way. I couldn’t tell you how the thing got inside and outside, I didn’t know and probably didn’t want to know to tell you the truth.

I don’t know how many days I was late to work chasing Mr. Toad out from underneath my car in the morning with a broomstick, or how often I would have to park outside the garage long enough to move Mr. Toad to the side and allow me to park.

The puppies thought Mr. Toad was interesting too. The older two might smell him from time to time, the hyper two would probably go so far as to lick him every now and then.

Humphrey’s usual path once released from the back yard fence is to bolt to the corner of the flower bed as fast as he can to pick up a piece of bark or mulch and munch on it for a few seconds before Dad pries it out of his mouth. One of these evenings Mr. Toad happened to be chilling out on that particular corner when Humphrey came running by. Well, Mr. Toad never sat there again, and Humphrey never accidentally picked Mr. Toad after that either.

To say the least, we’ve had a few adventures with Mr. Toad, but alas they are no more.

As H went out last night to pick up some groceries, she returned about 10 seconds after departing with a sullen face. It seems that Mr. Toad must have been making a mad dash through the garage when H got home that afternoon and he didn’t quite make the finish line. When I went to get him, he was significantly thinner than I remembered him.

So between H running down Mr. Toad and me catching his cousin Mr. Frog with the lawnmower on the other side of the house, we are now reptile-less in our household. Perhaps Mr. Lizard will pay us a visit when the Count is old enough to chase after them.