When I was very young, I loved to spend a summer’s evening catching toads and the bigger, the better. My father built a small cage for me to keep them in, which my family dubbed “the toad cage.”

One day, I put a clod of grass in the cage with a toad I had caught the night before. Just as I had hoped, a big old bug came crawling out of that clod and started running around the bottom of the cage. I thought if I just sat and waited long enough, maybe that toad would behave as I had seen in nature movies. Just maybe it would flick its tongue, grab that bug and eat it. It must have been a hungry toad because I didn’t have to wait very long. Just like in a National Geographic special, that tongue flicked out and the bug was gone in a flash. I felt privileged to have witnessed it.

When I spied the story on the Internet about the Devil Toad (or Beelzebufo) fossil that scientists found in Madagascar, I was curious. (Below is a reconstruction of what he must have looked like, with a pencil and present day toad for comparison.) What a toad it was! Scientists believe it weighed about 10 pounds, was 16 inches long, had a wide mouth and powerful jaws, as well as teeth. A little different than the garden variety I use to spend a summer’s night looking for.

On a different note, as much as I was glad that Uno, the Belleville bred beagle, won Westminster’s Best of Show last week, I am fearful that shelters will be overrun with beagles that were given up because the glamour and cuteness wore off. It always happens. When the movie “101 Dalmatians” came out, shelters found themselves saddled with Dalmatians because everyone wanted one, only to find that the dog was not what they had envisioned.

Please people, do your homework. Make sure the beagle, or any breed, fits your lifestyle before you take on the responsibility.

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