A very curious thing started happening this summer. Late in the evening, just after it gets dark, frogs begin coming up the dog ramp and onto the front porch. They don't even wait for the dogs to be put inside before they start hopping up the ramp; they are totally unconcerned by the presence of the dogs, some of who can see! The first few times they started doing this, Alayne and I would freak out, thinking at least one or two of the dogs might go after the frogs — so we'd scoop them up and put them back out under the porch or across the fence. But soon it became apparent that the dogs weren't bothering the frogs at all, because we'd come out on the porch to pull dogs in for the night and find two or three frogs hopping around, with dogs laying about. Clearly the frogs knew something we didn't.
On Tuesday night, I opened the porch door to get Madison — the last one still out — and saw a frog headed up the ramp right towards her. I ducked back inside to get the camera, cracked the screen door open a bit, and started photographing. Not only was the frog not worried about Madison (the frog, bear in mind, doesn't know she's blind), he also wasn't concerned about my presence or even the camera flash going off. How laid back can a frog be?
So as I clicked away, he kept hopping along in front of her:
Then, a few seconds later, looking through the lens, I saw the frog make a sudden, darting move with its tongue, and something disappeared inside its mouth. I hadn't noticed anything earlier and didn't know what it was until I uploaded the photos on the camera, but it turned out to be a caterpillar also sauntering across the porch:
Bad timing, dude. Click on the photo for a larger image and you'll be able to see it there, in the space between the boards.
Then it was gone and inside the frog:
"Happy meal" consumed, the frog ventured on down the porch … by which time Madison was finally aware that something was going on here:
The frogs must realize this is a "live and let live" environment — except for caterpillars, of course.
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Okay, so I've had a couple of comments and emails complaining that I didn't do a blog post about Cinder's death. As I've said before, I don't post all of our losses and never have. For example, we lost Dusty, our blind Husky, to cancer last month, too. This wasn't a sign of "disrespect" to Cinder, nor did it have anything to do with the fact that she was a cat. The only reason I even mentioned her loss in the post about Mink was because I knew people would ask about Cinder, since she was one of our last two remaining cats.
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Contest Ends This Sunday — Still No. 3!
The current Shelter Challenge started on July 4th and ends at midnight on September 18th. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories … please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.
And remember, you can vote every day, so consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.
You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Please note: Use Rolling Dog Ranch for our name and NH for the state and our listing will come up. [Yes, we are still listed as Rolling Dog Ranch for the purposes of the contest, not Rolling Dog Farm.]
Because of your votes, we just won $1,000 as a weekly winner in this round of the Shelter Challenge. Please help us win more money for the animals here by voting every day, and by encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to vote every day, too. Thank you!
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