Raver Dogs party with cane toads

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My dog is getting high on cane toads. Should I be worried?​

ABC Science
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By environment reporter Nick Kilvert for What the Duck?!
Posted 9h ago9 hours ago

Some dogs seem to seek out toads in order to consume their venom.(Supplied: Emma Rehn)
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I've got a confession to make. My dog's name is Billie, and Billie's an addict.
She's a fiend for the old Rhinella marina, the hopping golf ball — cane toads.

I first heard about this behaviour from friends. Their dog, a basenji-cattle-dog-cross called Kazi, would mouth toads for the milky-white poison they produce in the glands behind their head.

Kazi's human parents could tell when she'd been on the toads, as they'd often find her on her back, legs in the air, lying in their queen-sized bed, eyeing off the ceiling.
But I'd assumed theirs was an isolated, or at least rare, case.

Then I noticed Billie, our border-collie-cattle-dog-cross, making herself scarce of an evening.

Cane toads secrete poison from glands behind their head as a defence mechanism.(Getty Images: Click48)

She'd come back in, looking sheepish, and with all the symptoms of a '90s raver at sunrise — pinned pupils, drooling, sloppy grin.
It didn't take long to find out where she was going. Like Kazi, she was on the amphibians. Where had I gone wrong?

Billie the dog is addicted to cane toads. And she's not alone

Many dogs pick up the habit of licking cane toads, and with warmer and wet weather it can be especially risky. Here's how to spot the signs and what to do if your dog is poisoned.

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