Cucumber

Cucumber is my third ever owned American Green Tree Frog. These frogs are usually a grass-green color with a creamy colored line that runs from their jaw along the flanks. They dont grow to be any bigger than 2-3 inches big and they live most to almost their entire lives up in trees, hences the name Tree Frog. Cucumber came with two other tree frogs i bought (Pickles and Olive) but they died from being in such rough shape from shipping. Cucumber is now three years old and lives in a large tank with two other fire-belly frogs. Rarely would he ever go to the floor of the cage, hes always hiding in the greenery in the corner so he hardly ever made contact with the fire-bellies. Night after night around 3-4am i would start to hear this light croaking that gradually got louder and louder and then too loud that i would find myself on the couch the next morning. It must of been mating season with his attract call to females. Tree frogs live anywhere from 2-7 years, atleast held in captivity.

Recently, I'm not sure what or how it happened, but he somehow managed to break his left arm and its causing him to be in alot pain to the point he cant even climb no longer, which is a huge thing for these frogs. I called a vet and asked him what i can do to help Cucumber. He said that i should probably bring him over to get some X-rays of his arm. I did. What they found was frighting to me. They saw where the bone was dislocated and there was a tiny infection around the opened area. The vet told me that if it didn't heal fast enough, in which it probably wouldn't, then the infection would spread and would most likely kill him. My only option was surgery and that wasn't even promising to save him, the surgery itself could kill him. I was between a rock and a hard place, no matter what decision i made would keep my frogs life at risk.



Few hours of making a pro and con list, my conclusion came down to doing the surgury. As i sat and waited in the waiting room i began to cry. I tried hard not to think about it but the more i did the worse it got. A man and his wife was sitting across from me who apparently had a cat in the surgery room as well getting it stiches removed after getting nutured. The man asked me what was wrong and i told him my tree frog is getting surgery and i was afriad he wouldnt live through it. The women gave me this astounded look and asked me if i was "being for real". She told me thats the strangest thing she heard and left the room. I could hear her ask an employee at the desk about my strange story and i heard something about "pictures". When she came back she sat down and told me that she was an Magazine writter and she wanted to write my story. She had a vet in the surgury room taking pictures of my frogs process.



Cucumber has now had his surgery and is still recovering. I am still waiting to hear back from the woman writting her story.

Romeo and Juliet

About three summers ago in 2007 i walked into an MVP (Most Valuable Pets) store. My main mission was to buy a couple dozen crickets and a jar of crickets calcium for my toads, but something caught my attention. Out on the corner of my eye i noticed a beautiful Lemon yellow frog with blood red eyes and reddish-green squiggles down its back. Sitting next to the yellow frog was a green-green frog with a yellow belly, solid golden eyes and brown squiggles. Both of them looked alike with fat bodies, huge heads but tiny little legs that nearly disappeared under the fat. At first i thought they were fake little rubber toys in an aquarium just for display purposes, until the yellow one blinked. I couldn't believe they were real frogs. I saw a small card tapped onto the aquarium with information about them. It said "Pacman Frogs (Ornate Horned Frogs) , these frogs make great pets despite their large size, are not very active and do not need a large cage. A 10 gallon tank is fine for one of these frogs. The name Pacman comes from their large mouths but small bodies". They didn't seem very big to me, one could easily fit in the palm of my hand. I stood in the store over an hour debating if i should get these frogs. I don't know why i stayed there so long because i knew in the end they would be in my house by the end of the night.

Later that night after they were perfectly setup in my room i decided to do a little online research about them. I finally understood why the card said "despite their large size". They are only babies, at full adult size they grow to be about the size and weight of a football. They aren't very fussy eaters, almost anything on the menu that moves. Albino Pacman frogs are common pets as well as the average green Ornate frog. Life span of 7-10 years, and they are extremely lazy.

Romeo (green, male)and Juliet (albino, female) are now three years old and nearly quadrupled in size. The Internet wasn't lying when they said they are lazy, the only movement i see them do is when they gradually waddle over to the water dish and back into their hole they dug out and when they eat.
Pacman frogs are not terribly difficult to care for, so can make a good pet that is quite attractive and interesting. However, people who like their pets active or interactive may get tired of caring for a pacman frog. Considering a these frogs can live for 7 -10 years, getting one of these frogs amounts to a long term commitment.

PS: to all readers, if you pick up or irriate a Pacman frog don't be alarmed, they do scream!

Lemon

Lemon is going to be a little bit difficult to write about knowing that i had a difficult time to find out about her spices. I got her when my ex-boyfriend worked in a pet store and a man walked in with her and two other fire belly toads saying that he was moving and couldn't take care of them. It was then when my ex knew exactly to call me first and of course i took them in. When i first saw Lemon i had no idea what she was, a toad or a frog. She was a little bit larger then my toads with skin waxy to the touch and this beautiful color design. She was white on her stomach and black with wiggling lemon yellow strips across her back. Golden eyes with strange giant circular pupils that made it difficult to even see the golden ring, almost too creepy to look at.



After a couple a months of having her and having to rearrange many tank setups in which she was not happy with and trying to study about her in every attempt failed, i finally gave up. I decided to then pack my bags and take a trip to the Columbus zoo and meet up with Greg Whitman, the frog specialist of the zoo. I brought Lemon along so he can take a closer look at her. When he saw Lemon he was stunned. This was his first challenge. Flipping through all his books and charts while Lemon just happily walked on his desk eating a appetizer of of crickets and beetles. It started from a few hours to a few days before he finally found a solution. Greg spoke with a friend of his in the Cuban area and its believed that she a spices foreign to North America and if that's so then it would be illegal for me to keep her. Greg offered to take her in captivity in the zoo or i would have to buy a legal licence to keep her. I wanted to leave her at the zoo because i thought it would the best for her but i just didn't want to leave her in a place where snotty nose children stick their ugly faces up to the glass day after day. I brought her back home but until then i found out it was a $800 fine for the licence. Love is no amount to money so of course i bit the bullet and bought the licence.



Figuring if she was a spices from the Cuban area then i should set up a tropical tank, a rain forest appeal. I assume i did something right because she ended up being very happy.