Shylock and Falstaff like frogs. They like frogs so much, that they keep bringing live ones into the house. I've found out the most original way to end a phone call "Oh My God, there's a frog in the front room, Better go, Bye" - for full effect this has to be uttered in less than 30 seconds, in a panicked voice, giving the person at the other end no time to laugh at you before you hang up and then try to sort the problem out.

I've found the best approach is as follows:

1. Remove cats from frog - easier said than done, as there are two of them and one of me. Also sometimes the cats and frog are in inaccessible places. I normally shut the cats in another room at this point, but it can be difficult putting the second cat in with the first cat, without the first cat escaping, and without noses, paws or tails getting shut in doors.

2. Relocate frog - they normally play dead when the cats are around, but as soon as the cats have gone, the frogs magically reanimate and start exploring. I'm surprised how far they can get in such little time. Sometimes this requires peering under furniture such as sofas or pianos, with a torch - not my favorite activity, since I'm scared the frog is going to jump on my head while I'm lying on the carpet peering under the furniture.

3. Once frog has been located, estimate its size and work out what container to place on top of it - I normally follow the spider catching principle of glass over spider, piece of cardboard carefully slide under glass, then whole thing removed from the house, before releasing the spider. The problem is, most of the frogs are too big for the average sized glass. As a result, we have a specially chosen mixing bowl, but you'd be amazed how long it takes my husband to work out which cupboard the bowl is in, then to get out the whole stack of bowls and extract the correct one from half way down the pile of bowls. Meanwhile, the frog is doing laps of the lounge, or is heading under the furniture at high speed (well, he's not breaking any speed limits, but since I don't actually want to touch the frog, any movement is considered unnecessary and fast).

4. Place container over frog and then find a suitably sized piece of cardboard to slide under the container. - why is it there are never any good sized pieces of cardboard around when you need one most? We then spend another few minutes disassembling a cereal box to get a piece of cardboard large enough to fit under the container. Cats by this point can be heard crying pitifully behind the door.

5. Carefully slide the cardboard under the container - this is the real skill part of the operation. Spiders seem to cooperate at this point, and quite obligingly walk onto the cardboard. Frogs do not. I've got this fear of trapping one of their legs between the cardboard and the bowl, so this bit is quite nerve-racking. It is made worse, if my husband has given me a bowl that isn't glass, so that I can't actually see what the frog is doing.

6. Once frog is safely captured, proceed to front or back door with frog and release it outside. - more skill is required here, else the frog ends upside down on the lawn, which I figure isn't very good for the frog. The best thing is to put the cardboard & bowl contraption on the grass by the pond and carefully lift the bowl up, keeping the open side away from you. If you open it towards you, there is always a chance that the frog will jump at your head again. After a few words of encouragement, the frog normally jumps off into the pond, although there was the one time that Paul was seen trying to herd a frog towards the pond, using a large plant pot. He had no shoes on at the time, and the frog kept jumping at his bare feet.

7. Go back inside, and put mixing bowl in dishwasher on the hot setting.

8. Collapse on sofa in relief at a mission successfully completed, the get up again to let cats back in. - They normally charge over to the last known position of the frog and start hunting round the carpet for it.

Last night, however, the whole process was greatly simplified. The cats have a toy ball, which looks like a buckyball with each face cut out, sort of like a lattice work with holes. Its about 15 cm in diameter and the holes must be about 1cm wide. The frog had managed to crawl inside - quite a feat, since it was larger than the holes. The guys I work with assure me that this is normal, since frogs have elastic type skeletons. The holes were too small for the cats to put their paws through, so the frog was actually quite safe. It was a relatively easy matter to pick the ball up, take it outside and put it down by the pond. The frog then crawled out and hopped off into a flowerbed.

I'm hoping word will get around the frog community, and that all the frogs that get bought into our house follow suit. Not only does it make my job easier, but it also keeps the frog safe from the cats, until I get home to sort things out.

Copyright © Rachel Craddock
October 27, 2004