Pet Frogs: A Gift They'll Never Expect

Print

If you've ever considered getting your grandkids a pet, you’ll want to read this

This article is courtesy of Grandparents.com.

By Beverly Beckham

It was last year at this time, a few days before my grandson’s fifth birthday, when I began to worry about what to get him. What wonderful something could his grandfather and I buy that would stand out from all the other gifts I knew he’d receive from his aunts and uncles and friends?

A dog, of course. Every boy wants a dog. Lassie. Winn-Dixie. Skip. But a dog is not what you give your grandson when your grandson’s mother, your daughter, has absolutely no use for four-legged creatures of any variety. If I showed up with a dog for her son, she would have shown me the door.

Which is why I decided on frogs.

The Gift

They came as a pair — two tiny little things — in a square miniature Plexiglas eco-aquarium, which, according to the "easy care instructions" that came with them and the people in the store, was essentially maintenance-free. You have to clean the mini aquarium only once a year, because it comes with "living gravel," and the bamboo included does something to the alkaline in the water, one salesperson explained. Another effused about how much her granddaughter and grandson loved their frogs. She bought them each two, she said.

The frogs themselves seemed eager to be swept up and carried away, leaping and lunging like creatures in a Disney movie, dozens and dozens of them pirouetting (think the Dancing Mops in Fantasia, only without music), all the little aquariums stacked on top of one another, piled high and spread out all over the counter.

"These frogs are selling like hotcakes," both salespeople sang.

And I said, "I'll take that pair over there."

Adam seemed to like the frogs at first, though not as much as he'd have liked a dog, of course. They were extremely sprightly when he was unwrapping them (and tipping them upside down). There were even a few "oohs" and "aahs" from the crowd.

But then he got Monopoly and a computer game and a Star Wars costume. And because frogs do not nuzzle you with their nose or bark to be noticed or demand that you feed them RIGHT NOW, they sat, from day one, essentially abandoned on the kitchen counter.