Meet Norbert

Well, it has been a week, and no one has claimed the Fire-Bellied Toad my children found in the street. When I stopped at a pet store for worms and crickets I was introduced to the possibility that rather than being an escapee, it is quite likely that the toad was the victim of buyer's remorse or pet-novelty-wear-offedness.

[This will most likely not apply to anyone who reads this, but SHAME on you if you have ever released a non-native species into the wild--ESPECIALLY if you did it out of convenience! The BEST case scenario is that the animal dies because it doesn't know how to survive in the wild (so mean; give it a quick humane death if you can't be bothered to find it a new home) and if it doesn't die, you run the risk of disrupting an entire ecosystem!]

The man at the pet store said they would take the toad if we decided not to keep it, but I think we have acquired a permanent addition. (Well, as permanent as any mortal pet can be.)

So, a pet needs a name. A Fire-Bellied Toad naturally leads the imagination to dragon type names, so I thought first of Smaug, but our little guy is not very menacing--despite his mildly toxic skin.

[My children were right; although the most it might do to them is create a mild irritation, it can be deadly to other frogs. Actually, my children are a wealth of information. They also informed me that toads swallow with their eyes! After watching it eat--fascinating--it appears to be true.]

Next came Eragon--actually, the name of the boy in the story, not the dragon. His dragon's name is Saphira--a little grand and pretty for a toad. Kazul is the main dragon in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede (one of my favorites!) but again... not quite right. Finally I remembered the dragon Hagrid hatched in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". Norbert may seem like a diminutive name for a Norwegian Ridgeback, but I think it is just right for a Fire-Breathing (er...bellied) Toad.

*******Picture coming soon; I have yet to get a very good picture of Norbert, but you can see a fuzzy one on my previous post.