Skippy is Scared!

Welcome, the newest member of the Fremouw family... Skippy! I should post a pic but find myself too lazy to take the picture and upload it right now. Skippy is an unknown type of frog. We did decide that he is a frog, and not a toad. I guess smooth skin and a love for water means "frog", so that is about all we know of him. He/She is about 1.5" in diameter and scared out of its mind. The poor frog spent its first night in the bottom of a giant PlayDough tub. I came home from scrapbooking to find him curled up on the tin floor, panting like it was about to have a heart attack. I put a sock in there and a few larger river rocks from my front yard. A couple small branches from a bush provided a place for Skippy to hide and the dish of water that stood higher than the frog was replaced with a shallow Tupperware lid of water. Skippy chose to sit in the water. No food. No heat. Nothing familiar. Skippy was stunned into a catatonic state for the night.

So this morning we got the family around and headed to Petco to get some relief for Skippy. Sadly enough, no one could identify the type of frog we had from the picture we took (Ok, so now I am busted for being simply too lazy to upload it since the picture is already on the camera). They told us he would need a container to call home and both wet and dry places to remain within his new clear walls. They suggested a glass home, but $40 for a glass home was more than we could muster for a frog we are more likely to kill than raise. So we got our cheap plastic "aquarium" and decided to use yard rocks to give him a resting place.

Food was our next obstacle. The pet store help told us Skippy would eat crickets. So we bought 10 small crickets which is expected to be about a 2 day supply, assuming they don't gang up on Skippy and kill it. Yes, you heard me right. Apparently crickets can kill anything that eats them with enough fellow crickets and the will to do it. So for now, we have to keep an eye on Skippy to ensure that Skippy wins out over the food. The crickets as super small, which makes me feel better about it. (I did just pay a pest control company to kill all such bugs around my home and then find myself paying for MORE BUGS today. That does sit wrong within me.)

So we get home, put gravel in the bottom, water that was boiled before we left for the pet store and now cooled to room temperature, and more river rocks. Not perfect, but it should work. We release the crickets into the dry portion and then Celia picks up Skippy and places him carefully onto a river rock. He quickly relizes that we are all staring and him and started, Skippy slouches back into a crack in a desperate attempt to hide. It does him no good. There is really not much to hide in. Again, eyes bulging, lower chin skin moving back and forth at a record pace, Skippy is about to jump out of his skin or burst a heart valve. Not sure which.

We move him upstairs into a common area of our home and quickly, Skippy decides this is his/her last chance to escape. Skippy jumps into the plastic wall. And again, and again. Now realizing that it really isn't getting him/her anywhere, Skippy sits. Crickets move all around and Skippy could care less. I think the starving frog, expected to eat 5 crickets a day or more, can stand the thought of eating. Skippy has lost its appetite. Every time a child looks in on Skippy, he/she squirms with fear. Poor frog has no piece and would rather be in a cardboard Playdough tub with a tin bottom where the false security of feeling alone in a cave exists than to be in a free-for-all clear sided container, feeling completely vulnerable to small children that move with record speed and disregard.

So there you have it. Skippy. Our new family member that may or may not make it, all depending on how could its heart is at this point. I sure hope for my children's sake that Skippy decides to end the fast and eat before the crickets have time to colaborate for their own attack. And I hope that our new ecosystem is sufficient so that Skippy doesn't have a premature funeral. I will keep you posted!