This is the blog of a Norwegian (Marianne, aka 'M') who moved to Australia in 2007 to be with Roger (aka R) and feels lucky to have escaped a comparatively communistic country with ridiculous weather!

I was sitting in my office earlier this evening when Julie came and sat by the door. I looked over at her and her mouth looked funny. I thought she had an animal that she was about to eat, so I called her over to see what it was all about.

Instead of responding to me normally, she ran away. I figured I better follow, in case she had a gekko or something, so I did. She kept running away from me, which is very unlike her.

I finally got close enough to see what was up with her mouth, and it turned out there was no animal, it was froth. Julie's pupils were huge, and she looked really weird, and was constantly licking her lips, in addition to the froth.

I went inside and told R I thought she must have eaten a toad or something (we have had a ridiculous amount of cane toads in the garden lately) and R then came out and had a look, and agreed that she was looking really weird. He also pointed out to me (needlessly) that cane toads are venomous and cats can die from coming in contact with them. I said we better call a vet then, and so I did.

They said to run water over her gums for 15 minutes and if there was no improvement call them back. So I did that, while R went and googled symptoms, and told me it said to take the animal to the vet immediately if it was trembling, seizuring or unable to walk normally. Luckily, Julie wasn't showing any of those symptoms, but she was still being really weird. I was holding her by the scruff of her neck and soaking her with water, but she wasn't even struggling.

While rinsing her, it dawned on me that cats actually die from this, so I told her "you're not dying tonight!"

I couldn't tell if there was any improvement while holding her, so after about 10 minutes I let her go and she went straight to the couch and laid down and started licking the water off herself. I sat with her for a while, and she seemed to return to normal and responded to being talked to again.

So she's ok, but that was so scary. I was still shaking an hour later. And it was only luck that I noticed it, but I think she came to my office because she knew something was wrong, which is good.

The cats are being kept inside tonight, and tomorrow I am going over the whole garden and killing every single toad.