Saturday, February 23, 2008

Toxic Toad


Our friend Tosca scared us. Tosca wrote about WOD visiting her and even sent pictures. When we saw WOD, we thought Bufo Toad (Bufo marinus). When we read WOD was a frog, a collective sigh of relief could be heard throughout the house. We posted a picture of a Bufo Toad for you.

We heard somebody bark, what is a Bufo Toad? Why should I worry about a toad? Dogs living in south Florida, north east Australia, the Philippines, Central America, northern South America and some other places know about Bufo. These toads grow to typically 4-6 inches (10-15 cm) in length. They get up to 7 inches (17 cm) here in Key West.

Bufo Toads secrete toxic venom through their skin. If a dog eats or licks a Bufo Toad, death will very likely result if untreated. There have been cases where these toads sat around the water bowl and left enough toxin behind on the rim to poison a dog. They have even been known to eat dog food. Hmmm, that is why Dad doesn't leave our bowls outside.
Symptoms of Bufo Toad poisoning are:
-- Mouth irritation with foamy salivation
-- Depression
-- Weakness
-- Collapse
-- Difficulty breathing
-- Seizures
-- Fever
-- Vomiting
-- Diarrhea

The following two hyper-links provide a lot of pawtastic information about the Bufo Toads. Between them they cover where the live, look like, and the second one talks some what Dog Dad or Dog Mom can do to help you survive a Bufo incident.



Dog Speed.

Essex & Deacon

10 comments:

Urban Smoothie Read said...

why suddenly everyone indulge into Toad?..

n there even an award called Toad-dally Awesome...

Croak!

Sophie Brador said...

Hey Collies, I just missed you in the chat this morning. My mom is wondering if you've ever seen the movie Cane Toads ... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130529/

It's a great documentary and very funny. I suppose you could say it's the lighter side of the whole thing.

xo
SB

Dakota said...

Oh, wow. What a great post! The Mom had no idea.

Hey, I wanted to thank woo for the funky blog award! I'll get it up on my blog shortly.

PerfectTosca said...

Whoa! That's some nasty lookin' toad! Glad WOD ain't one of those!

Jake of Florida said...

We appreciate your post about Bufo toads. They are pretty dangerous creatures. JH loves to chase little frogs in the summer after it rains, and Mom is always super cautious.

Jake and JH

PS We loved Essex' photo and just voted for it. She's been too busy to take care of our blog; but she did just check outthe photos and had to cast our vote.

Jake of Florida said...

We appreciate your post about Bufo toads. They are pretty dangerous creatures. JH loves to chase little frogs in the summer after it rains, and Mom is always super cautious.

Jake and JH

PS We loved Essex' photo and just voted for it. She's been too busy to take care of our blog; but she did just check outthe photos and had to cast our vote.

Islay said...

Yes, nasty things, those toads. When you go out enough, you learn not to stick your nose just anywhere. Amphibians never really interested me much anyway, but I would be a bit worried about our predatory friends, the cats!

licks & slobbers
-Charlie

PerfectTosca said...

My Frog WOD is a GOOD frog.

Maximillian the Valliant said...

Hey Key Collies,

Stop by some time soon, Mom is going to be adopting a (wait for it) COLLIE! Right now we have two fosters, Irma the Squirma Toad (I thought that fit with your post) and Rocky (he is sick right now, but is part collie). Anyway, I'll be posting a little later.

MTV

Anonymous said...

Dawgs, if we saw that toad thing in our yard two things would happen... we'd bark our heads off and then Opie wouldn't go outside any more and then I would squat and poop out my dinner. Ok. That's three things... but dogmom says since we bark our heads off at everything anyways, it only counts as two things.
Wuf Ya! Gomer & Opie