Sebastian is a cat. You’ve heard it said, "What’s in a name?" And that’s certainly food for thought when you hear what some pets are called.

Smoky, Butch, Matts Cat, Little One; then there was Mittens with his extra toes and Flumkin who was the offspring of Fluffy and Pumpkin-puss. Those were some of our familiar cat names throughout the years ... but Sebastian? Well, anyway, that is what our daughter named her almost-all-black cat. Sebastian eventually became nicknamed Scooby-do to us ... the grandparents.

Sebastian is Mr. Personality-plus. He has huge sparkly yellow eyes that peer out of a shiny black face. A few wisps of white hair gracefully appear above the eyes, for brows, giving him an inquisitive look while a white inverted V graces his nose, arches past the whisker area and around his chops. It almost looks like an upside down heart. The long, white, sensitive, countless whiskers are very pronounced against his black furry cheeks. This cat is one distinctive looking feline, which adds to that personality all of his very own.

Front feet are tipped with white, and raring to give you a grab. His rear legs, with stockings, will playfully give you the "rabbit kicks," when he does the tummy-up-scratch-me act.

There are two fluffy white up-and-down Vs decorating his chest and tummy, resembling an hourglass. Stretch all this out lengthwise and you have one happy 14-plus-pound cat.

Living on a busy road necessitates that Scooby-do has a Velcro collar and long leash. Trained as a kitten, he readily accepts his restraint, as long as he can lounge in the backyard tall grasses and sneak under bushes to find fascinating bugs.

Our daughter, being a single-cat mom, can’t stand her child, Sebastian, being called anything else other than his given name. Most of the time he is definitely very intelligent enough not to respond to such "nickname" calling by us, his grandparents.

He certainly has a mind of his own.

So much for the name. What can we expect when our daughter’s former Siamese cat was called Meshugga. That means "crazy" in Yiddish.

Odd or different?

Now the true experience: Scooby the cat and Casey, our cocker spaniel, are friends and spend time in the backyard together. Checking on them, I saw that they were excitedly jumping up and down. The cat’s leash was stretched to the limit and both were intent on "whatever" was going on under the porch.

There, to my horror was a large striped garden snake, and what was he doing? He was trying to devour a big fat toad. Yuck! Its legs were frantically kicking so we knew he was still alive _ but soon was to be a delicious dinner for Mr. Snake.

Poor Mr. Toad just had to be rescued, so I screamed for my husband and he came running, "What’s all the commotion? What is going on?" I know _ Mr. Snake was just doing what snakes do. As I always told the children years ago, "Snakes eat the bad bugs, so they are good to have in the garden." Well, toads do the same thing, so who’s going to win out? Is there a balance?

Help was on the way. My husband leaned down grabbing the toad’s legs and pulled gently to dislodge the poor creature. Mr. Snake would not give up his dinner. His jaws were unhinged and clamped on the prey with the determined intent of devouring his victim whole.

"Do something, save the poor thing," was all this helpless person could say. Our cat and dog bystanders were just that _ just stood there and watched the humans in action.

Hubby did it. With ingenuity and quick thinking, he grabbed the garden hose and shot a forceful stream of water at the culprit. Out popped the toad.

Gently my husband reached down scooped up Mr. Toad, examined him, placed him safely in the garden away from harm’s way and the snake slithered away to hunt someplace else.

We don’t know the life span of a toad but we do see what looks like our rescued Toady from time to time _ big, fat and full of warts. We have even seen a few miniatures here and there also. Good to know we still have sentinels taking care of the "bad bugs" and the garden is flourishing.

Elaine W. Kniskern is a 75-year-old resident of Schenevus and a grandmother of five.