Mr. Toad’s Wild Swim

One of the best things about living in AZ is the multitude of wildlife. A few weeks back, we got home from picking Kenna up at preschool. One of our neighbor boys had chipped four of his teeth so he came with us to wait for his mom to take him to the dentist. We were sitting in our kitchen (which overlooks the backyard) and he asked if that was a frog in the pool.

Since we’ve had little tiny frogs back there before, I said “oh probably”. Then we went to investigate.

Boy were we surprised when this was what was waiting for us….

It was the biggest freaking toad I’ve ever seen! I’m guessing he/she weighed close to a pound and a half.

After a little research on the internet – we determined it was a Desert Sonoran Toad. Which also happens to be highly poisonous to dogs.

Gulp. Glad we found it first.

The mystery still remains of why it was in our pool at that particular moment (they usually come out during monsoon season which it isn’t). We had quite a time catching the darn thing so we could take it elsewhere. Our pool net proved to be a great jumping off point for him. What finally worked was a big bucket.

He hung out in the bucket until Moira got home from school. We showed him off, then took him to a wash and released him there…into the mud we created.

Good luck Mr. Toad! Hope you’re not dead.