I have scads of tiny toadies at this moment. They are prolific and when you walk around the pond they scatter away from your feet. I don't know how many survive but they spread out into the yard and garden. I find them when they get bigger sitting under the patio lights eating bugs that have beat their brains out on the lights.

Toads have two 'pads' on the back of their heads just behind their eye's. These pads emit a white milky substance that is quite unpleasant for animals to taste. That's why your dogs don't show much interest in them. They probably have picked one up before and remember how awful it was.

Also toad tadpoles are also not very yummy, and that is why the goldfish leave them alone.

It's a survival mechanism.

vieja: Don't worry. When we first installed our pond 6 years ago, toads appeared. I knew they were in the garden but never thought twice about how they reproduced. (Actually, I'm still amazed how fast our first frog showed up!) When I first saw two locked together, I thought how cute. I assumed one was a baby and the mom was giving it a ride on its back. I later discovered the larger toads are the females and the males sit on the back of the female while they are making sweet love. ;o) They only mate in the water - after that they return to land. If you caught it early enough you would see what looks like a long, clear piece of plastic tape that has eggs attached to it. If you find that, you can grab it out of your pond and limit the amount of polywogs (toadpoles?!). But don't be alarmed. We freaked out with our first experience with toads. Our pond was FULL and I mean full of eggs. It looked like we had splattered paint on every rock - we must have had thousands. The fish ate many of them. Others got into the yard and disappeared. I think birds got some. The lawnmower got more. We maybe had a dozen or so adults come back the next year. You won't get hundreds of toads. Toads are great for insect control so it's not a bad thing to have some toads around. The noise I can live without. They sound like a sci-fi movie when they get to screaming. That's called "trilling." From what I read, when they trill it means the males are calling to the females or they are claiming their turf. I can't seem to find a definite answer on why they trill during mating season. The babies are fun to watch. They are very, very small at first. I think it's a piece of dirt until it starts hopping away! My dog is also curious about the ones that he finds on the patio at night, but that's about all. They just basically stare at each other.

The weather here has been so odd this spring that I thought the window had closed on toad mating. Last week the reunion began with many showing up and trilling. Mine react to an overhead plane, weed-wacker and anything that has a pulsing sound by trilling as if to invite the alleged friend to the party. One day they were gone, but I had ropes of eggs on everything they could find - plants and even a cord. A few days later the ropes were gone and now I have thousands of tadpoles in the pond.

In a few weeks they'll emerge as what I call toadlets. (One year I thought it was hundreds of crickets at my feet.) You'll see them in the garden for a while and then they'll slowly disappear - many, probably, into the food chain.

The drier it is the less you'll see them. They'll find some moist and warm leaf litter to snuggle into.

I'm pleased to have toads. They eat slugs!

They will disperse into the landscape. Many won't make it. You won't be overrun with them. Amphibians in general are in trouble and they need our help with places to safely breed.