Jaime and I would like to relate a story to you so that if it happens to one of your dogs you won’t go crazy like we started to. Many of you probably know our two white huskies Winter and Skye. One night they had been outside playing for a couple of hours. We went to let them inside so they could have some water and relax with us. Now usually as soon as we start to open the patio door they are barreling in as fast as possible. This night was different. They were by the picnic table and just looked up at us as if to say “Hey we are having fun out here. What do you want?” After a little coaxing they finally came in. We noticed that something was wrong with Skye right away when she didn’t go get some water to drink. I noticed that as she walked around she was spitting little bits of foam on the floor.
The side of her mouth looked foamy and at first I thought she maybe had a rawhide stuck in her teeth. I wiped her mouth and found that there was nothing in her mouth but foam. We couldn’t get her to drink any water and the foam just kept coming. Jaime was getting worried and had me call the emergency number for the vet. I called their service and started to get ready in case we had to take her to the vet. I came back downstairs in about two minutes and Jaime said that Skye was starting to drink some water. The vet called back about then and I told her what had happened, and that Skye seemed to be getting better. The vet told us that what most likely happened was Skye had gotten a hold of a frog. Now many of you probably know that part of a frog or toad’s defense against animals that may try to eat them is they release a bitter liquid to make the animal drop them. I guess Skye may not have minded the taste and kept playing with it enough so that she got quite a dose, and that caused her to foam up a lot. When she was back to normal a few minutes later she ate and drank quite a lot of food and water. I guess she was finally trying to get that taste out of her mouth.
It was quite a scare for a few minutes as all sorts of ideas like seizures went through our minds. In the end it was nothing more than a playful frog. If we had tried to bring them in the house 15 minutes later we may never have known it happened.