Little Toad

[muddy]

Yesterday I found a little toad  swimming for its life in a bucket of rain water .
How it got in there is a mystery but it couldn't get out .
I rescued it 
Haven't see a toad for years .

[klondike]

Can't say I have either. Saw plenty of frogs and toads as a child. I think children are attracted to the sorts of places they live

[Scrumpy]

Awww!!! Poor little thing..
I'm scared of frogs and toads.. I always have been.. Goes back to my childhood..
But... I would have rescued it.. I can't bear creatures struggling..

[Mups]

Yesterday I found a little toad  swimming for its life in a bucket of rain water .
How it got in there is a mystery but it couldn't get out .
I rescued it
Haven't see a toad for years .

Muddy,  I can only think that perhaps a bird had taken it, but dropped it again,   possibly because of the toads awful skin.

 A few years ago I believe I wrote about my dear old elderly Bedlington picking a toad in the garden up one night,  and its skin had a horrific effect on her almost instantly. 
 She looked like a rabid dog.  Mouth frothing and foaming,  eyes dilated like a mad animal,    really frightened me and I had to call the vet about midnight for advice!

[Dextrous63]

Amphibians can be surprisingly dangerous.  I recall David Attenborough talking about this little beauty on Life on Earth (iirc, but he's done so many programs)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_poison_frog

[morty]

It works both ways too ... it's dangerous for the crinkly skin too. We have loads of chemicals on us that can irritate them if we handle them.

I'm just glad I've never unwittingly bought a hitch hiking tree frog in a bunch of supermarket bananas.
 

[Mups]

Amphibians can be surprisingly dangerous.  I recall David Attenborough talking about this little beauty on Life on Earth (iirc, but he's done so many programs)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_poison_frog

Yes,  there are some very dangerous ones.   

My poor old dog was really bad.   She was dribbling bubbles of froth and foam, and trembling like a leaf.  But it was her eyes that were most frightening,  she looked quite mad,  the pupils were huge.

The vet said she should be alright because there were no poisonous toads in the UK,  and the only one he knew of was the Cane Toad,  but they didn't live in the UK.

Then I had a stroke of luck,  because I remembered from a very long time ago,  reading about an antidote to toad skin  burns.   It is milk!   Just ordinary, plain dairy milk.   And it works.

I  got some cotton wool, and quickly bathed her nose and lips,  but I needed to get it around the inside of her mouth, lips, tongue and throat mostly,   so poured some in a little bowl and held it up to her face.
She drank greedily.  And the more she drank,  the more she calmed down. 
 I could see it was working,  and her eyes slowly began to look more normal again.

I took her to bed with me that night,  so that if she got poorly again I would know straightaway.
Thank God,  by morning she was back to normal.

So remember that folks,  if your dog ever picks a toad up,  use milk straightaway.

[Dextrous63]

👍. Happy ending indeed, Mups.

[Mups]

👍. Happy ending indeed, Mups.

Yes,  thank God.

I doubt milk could get rid of an actual poison, from a foreign Toad,   but it certainly calmed the burning skin and pain,  and that alone helped her calm down. 

[muddy]

I think that you may be right about a bird Mups as I have a sparrow hawk that frequents my garden .
It got a pigeon the other day  poor thing .

The little toad had no injuries through and hopped away quite happily .

[klondike]

It got a pigeon the other day  poor thing .

I'd recommend you look well away. I saw a pile of feathers and checked my CCTV to see why. It's gruesome.