The Toad Whisperer - Beverly Golberg

Rating ****

This was a funny, cute article that a woman wrote about her childhood pets. She never had a normal pet like a dog or hamster, but she did have many toads. Every weekend, her and her family would go up to their cottage on Minnesota Lake and she would find toads. She preferred toads to frogs she says because they were "meek, cuddly and portable." I don’t really know what kinds of toads they have on Minnesota Lake, but I have never found a cuddly toad. She would keep the toads that she collected in a minnow bucket and let them go every Sunday night before her and her family returned to the city. She even talks about how she would find injured toads after her dad mowed the lawn, and she created a little hospital for them out of an aluminum cake pan. Since this girl spent a lot of her time handling toads, she talks about how they always pee in the person’s hand that picks them up, but they also emit a toxin through their skin when threatened. So you should definitely wash your hands after holding a toad.

I chose this article because it reminded me of my little cousin Adam who loves collecting frogs, toads, fish or any little creature he an get his hands on and keeps them in our old minnow bucket. The only difference between him and Beverly Golberg (Author) is that he isn’t always so willing to let them free after the weekend. There are a lot of big toads around my cottage, and they come out mostly at night. One time when I was a kid, one of our cottage neighbors told me to flip the toad onto its back and rub its belly. He called this hypnotizing the toad because when you do it they won’t move and they look dead for a few minutes. It was a cool trick that I will never forget

Golberg, Beverly. "The Toad Whisperer." Cottage Life Magazine. April 2010. Print.