Advice Appreciated

[Herpin Man]

I'm going to second the idea of going with a native toad. Most species are hardy, easy to feed and care for, and somewhat forgiving of husbandry errors. While no amphibian is really a handleable pet, I think toads come the closest. They also have loads of personality.
If you go out on a rainy night, you might find Woodhouses, Great Plains toads, Red-spotted toads, or a few others. Depends on what's around your area. I was in Arizona last month, and found seven species of toads abundant on the roads at night. Or, you might find something in a local pet store. You can find ads for toad sellers on fauna classifieds or kingsnake.com, but you may be discouraged by the cost to ship a single toad. Whatever you get, research the needs of that species thoroughly.

[daybr4ke]

Wow. I wanna go on a trip like that! Toads really do have personality, I love my two Woodhouses' Toads tons. They're always staring at something or digging. Or digging and then staring at something lol. Depending on the species they can be fairly large, and they aren't great jumpers, so they aren't exactly escape artists like some treefrogs(looking at you pacific treefrogs), which is nice.

[cvpd01]

What part of AZ did you visit? We are up near Prescott and have only seen the one toad this year. I used to see more during the rainy season but we had a really cold winter last year with lots of snow so not sure if that affected them or maybe predators are getting them. Do you know what the life span is on the native toads? My son is really hyper sensitive about things dying so I want something that hopefully will have a decent life span so he will be older before we have to deal with it. Also, what size container would I need, I have one terrarium, which is the more upright kind. I'll check and see if I can find anyone local or even down in the Phoenix area who might be selling frogs or toads, probably cheaper to make the trip to pick them up than pay the shipping.