• Members of the previous forum can retrieve their temporary password here, (login and check your PM).

Dogs tripping on cane toads in Australia

Migrated topic.
Vodsel

Vodsel

Rising Star
Senior Member
OG Pioneer
Senior member
Source: Psychedelic Frontier, via ICEERS
Publication Date: December 19th, 2013

Looks like everyone's starting to pay more attention to how non-human species chemically alter their consciousness... after the dolphins using puffer fishes, we have dogs using toads.

Apparently some dogs in Queensland, Australia have taken to getting high on cane toad secretions. Surprisingly, the dogs seem to enjoy the experience, repeatedly hunting down the animals just to get a fix. After licking the backs of the toads, the pets exhibit all the signs of doggy tripping — vacant stares, not responding to their owners, and reacting to nonexistent cues.

Cane toad secretions contain bufotenin, a psychedelic tryptamine related to DMT. But they also contain highly toxic chemicals that can cause vasoconstriction and death, so licking toads is generally a bad idea. Some dogs have died from cane toad poisoning, but others — like Dobby in the video below — are able to consume just enough to have a psychedelic trip without getting poisoned.

The video, an excerpt from the documentary Cane Toads: The Conquest, is both informative and hilarious. Dobby seems to be in doggy heaven.
Click to expand...

You can see it in a video in the source link.
 
GztbYWN.jpg
 
thanks Vodsel...most entertaining..(except for the risk of heart attack)

..don't know about dogs, but while it is dangerous for humans to orally ingest cane toad venom, go to the 7 minute point of this hilarious 1988 aus documentary to see a man talk about smoking the venom..
[YOUTUBE]
i wrote in another thread: "It was reported in the paper here about 10 years ago that a uni. student (as a dare) ate
cane toad ovaries...they had multiple heart attacks and almost died in hospital. The rest of the toad contains highly poisonous cardiac bufotoxins."
 
What fascinates me about this is where the behavior comes from. And the immediate answer of "they learned it from watching some other dog do it" doesn't help, because the question just moves to the primordial tripping dog that started the trend.

Then, is this a bunch of isolated trends, based on the simple fact that dogs like to lick things, and they eventually will lick something funny? Is there an imprint somewhere, enfolded within the dog's genes and body, that makes cane toads particularly attractive?

Do cane toads like to be licked? :)

It's perhaps the same questions we make around ourselves as humans, and I like it when we extend borders by finding more shared experiences with other species.
 
^..dogs have particularly attuned smell senses...they should instinctively know if something is edible or not..so i would imagine the smell of cane toad exudate attracts them in some other way...this would suggest that they may be attracted to smells of psychoactive compounds, or it is some kind of 'hormone' attraction..
i doubt it's simply a case of seeing other dogs do it..

on the apparently now more recognised topic of deliberate animal self-intoxication and tripping, in another thread i wrote:
ps. a good little book on this topic which, alas, i don't own, but have skimmed through is
Animals and Psychedelics by Giorgio Samorini (discoverer of the AQ1 Phalaris strain)
from the Amazon description:
Author Giorgio Samorini explores this little-known phenomenon and suggests that far from being confined to humans the desire to experience altered states of consciousness is a natural drive shared by all living beings and that animals engage in these behaviours deliberately. Rejecting the Western cultural assumption that using drugs is a negative action or the result of an illness Samorini opens our eyes to the possibility that beings who consume psychedelics - whether humans or animals - contribute to the evolution of their species by creating entirely new patterns of behaviour that eventually will be adopted by other members of that species. The author's fascinating accounts of mushroom-loving reindeer intoxicated birds and drunken elephants ensure that readers will never view the animal world in quite the same way again. * Throws out behaviourist theories that claim animals have no consciousness. * Offers a completely new understanding of the role psychedelics play in the development of consciousness in all species. * Reveals drug use to be a natural instinct.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
nen888 said:
^..dogs have particularly attuned smell senses...they should instinctively know if something is edible or not..so i would imagine the smell of cane toad exudate attracts them in some other way...this would suggest that they may be attracted to smells of psychoactive compounds, or it is some kind of 'hormone' attraction..
i doubt it's simply a case of seeing other dogs do it..
Click to expand...

When dogs smell chocolate, they want nothing more than to eat it, so their noses might not always be on their side, though I do agree with you to a certain extent.

on the apparently now more recognised topic of deliberate animal self-intoxication and tripping, in another thread i wrote:
ps. a good little book on this topic which, alas, i don't own, but have skimmed through is
Animals and Psychedelics by Giorgio Samorini (discoverer of the AQ1 Phalaris strain)
from the Amazon description:
Author Giorgio Samorini explores this little-known phenomenon and suggests that far from being confined to humans the desire to experience altered states of consciousness is a natural drive shared by all living beings and that animals engage in these behaviours deliberately. Rejecting the Western cultural assumption that using drugs is a negative action or the result of an illness Samorini opens our eyes to the possibility that beings who consume psychedelics - whether humans or animals - contribute to the evolution of their species by creating entirely new patterns of behaviour that eventually will be adopted by other members of that species. The author's fascinating accounts of mushroom-loving reindeer intoxicated birds and drunken elephants ensure that readers will never view the animal world in quite the same way again. * Throws out behaviourist theories that claim animals have no consciousness. * Offers a completely new understanding of the role psychedelics play in the development of consciousness in all species. * Reveals drug use to be a natural instinct.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I will be going to the bookstore to acquire this book tomorrow :)
 
Global said:
When dogs smell chocolate, they want nothing more than to eat it, so their noses might not always be on their side, though I do agree with you to a certain extent.
Click to expand...

Is it the cacao or the sugar and milk fat the dog is attracted to? I would assume the latter, but don't know for sure. Either way, you're right about their noses betraying them. They'll eat nuts with toxins in them or even completely inedible things like plastic or carpet.
 
blue_velvet said:
Is it the cacao or the sugar and milk fat the dog is attracted to? I would assume the latter, but don't know for sure. Either way, you're right about their noses betraying them. They'll eat nuts with toxins in them or even completely inedible things like plastic or carpet.
Click to expand...

My dog does this all the time. She has a real bad problem with eating paper products for some reason, especially paper towel. This makes going to the bathroom for her very difficult at times...

If their sense of smell plays a major factor in the things they eat, then why would she be eating stuff like this? It does not make sense to me...

Their sense of smell would make it easier to sniff out psychoactive compounds though, and if they know what these compounds do then it makes sense they would search for them.
 
Back
Top Bottom