WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- - A Palm Beach Gardens man is being called a hero after he jumped into action after a family dog is poisoned by a bufo toad, falls into the ocean while suffering a seizure and nearly drowns. 
 
 
 
 The frantic moments on a Key Largo boat dock were all captured on a surveillance camera. 
 
 
 
 "As soon as I saw her in the water, I thought she was dead," said Andrew Burtschin. 
 
 
 
 Burtschin, who's from Palm Beach Gardens, did not know at the time is pooch Shadow had bitten the toxic skin of a bufo toad. With her lungs full of water, Burtschin attempted CPR. 
 
 
 
 "I don't remember learning on a dog but, it's kind of the same principles I think," said Burtschin. 
 
 
 
 Minutes after he started CPR, Burtschin said his beloved family dog started moving again. After he rushed Shadow to the veterinarian, animal doctors confirmed the dog had bitten a bufo toad. 
 
 
 
 "Believe it or not, the dog falling right into the water right after exposure to the toad may not have been the worse thing because it gave the dog the ability to wash that toxic paste out of the dogs mouth and may have saved the dogs life," said David Hitzig, executive director of the Busch Wildlife Sanctuary in Jupiter. 
 
 
 
 Hitzig said the toxic skin of the non-native bufo toad can kill, if not treated. He said Shadow is one lucky dog. 
 
 
 
 "I think she might have eaten a four-leaf clover along with the toad or something," said Burtschin. 
 
 
 
 Shadow is now on antibiotics and expected to make a full recovery from an ordeal Burtschin will likely never forget. 
 
 
 
 "I guess I was in the right place and the right time. I'm really happy because she's a great dog and I'm really happy she's alive," said Burtschin. 
 
 
 
 Wildlife experts urge pet owners to continuously wipe and wash the mouth of any dog who comes into contact with a bufo toad.
– Earlier this month, a Florida dog owner gave his pooch mouth-to-mouth resuscitation—or "mouth to snout," he calls it—in an effort to save the dog's life, the Miami Herald reports. Andrew Burtschin, 29, returned from a boating trip to his Key Largo home on Oct. 1 and saw his dogs, Skunk and Shadow, munching away on something. Burtschin thought little of it until Shadow, breathing heavily, went into contortions and plopped face-down in a canal. Burtschin hurried over in his boat and pulled out Shadow's lifeless body. "As soon as I saw her in the water, I thought she was dead," he tells WPTV. Trained in CPR, Burtschin applied chest compressions and gave the golden retriever/pit bull mix "mouth-to-snout resuscitation." "I don't remember learning [CPR] on a dog but, it's kind of the same principles I think," he says. Sure enough, Shadow spat up foam and Burtschin hurried her to the vet—who gave the dog a steroid that seemed to bring her out of shock. The culprit? According to Florida wildlife expert David Hitzig, Shadow ate a bufo toad that emits a potentially fatal toxin from its head. Shadow may have lucked out by falling in the canal, which flushed toxins from her mouth, Hitzig says. As Burtschin puts it, "I think she might have eaten a four-leaf clover along with the toad or something." And Shadow is still dining on the darn things, with no ill effects so far: "She’s gotten into several of them since then," says Burtschin. "She hasn't learned her lesson." (Read about a teen who lost a leg and rescued a dog who did, too.)