Evicting Leonard

Shannon and I have a hot tub, which I consider to be an essential training tool.
You may have heard "experts" recommend ice baths to aid in recovery from hard runs, but actually hot tubs are a far superior therapy.
This is based on scientific studies which have concluded that ice baths are horribly painful and hot tubs feel really freaking good.

Anyway, a few months ago I found a frog in our hot tub.
During the summer, the tub is not used, but I have to keep water in it because it is made of wood.
The frog had somehow squeezed through a tiny gap in the cover was living large in his own private pond.

Now, the tub is no swamp. I spent a lot of time and effort keeping this thing clean. It is scrubbed, filtered, ph-balanced, ionized, and sanitized year round. The frog was the second most disgusting thing to crawl into it this year. The most disgusting thing was when I finished the 50 miler in April.

Anyway, he had to go. But he was quite stubborn and didn't want to budge. So I forcibly relocated him to the back yard, figuring he would hop away someplace else.

A few days later he was back.
So this time I exiled him to the front yard, under some bushes.
A few days later he was back again. I couldn't believe it.
How could he find his way back some 200 meters, through thick bushes and a fence? Don't frogs just hop around randomly? Was it a different frog that looked exactly the same?

So I put him back in the front yard.
This past weekend I went to clean the tub to put it back into use, and there he was.

In total, we relocated him 6 times. We named him Leonard. Somehow, with his built-in hot tub radar he would always come back. I tried securing the cover tightly, but he somehow squeezed in.

"Dooright, we are going for a walk."
This time I put Leonard into a take-out food container and took him a quarter mile down to a little stream.

I took Dudley Dooright with me, which was a mistake. He was very interested in what was in the box. I suddenly remembered the time when I carefully captured a bird that had become trapped in the house. I wrapped it in a blanket, and took it outside. When I opened the blanket, Dudley thought we were playing and jumped on it. The poor little bird was crushed before it could fly away.
Or the time Shannon caught a moth and let it out side where Dudley promptly ate it.

"NOOOOO!" I told the big dog. That was enough to calm him down.
Then I let Leonard out.
The frog jumped about 5 feet in the air. Maybe it was for joy, exited about his new home. More likely he was trying to smack me in the face.

Anyway, goodbye Leonard.
If you come back again, I am going to Fedex you to Australia.