diff --git a/tools/dump.cpp b/tools/dump.cpp
index 155f84b8c3555..59bdaf3091552 100644
--- a/tools/dump.cpp
+++ b/tools/dump.cpp
@@ -333,11 +333,18 @@ class Dump : public Tool {
             auth( "admin" );
 
             BSONObj res = conn( true ).findOne( "admin.$cmd" , BSON( "listDatabases" << 1 ) );
-            BSONObj dbs = res.getField( "databases" ).embeddedObjectUserCheck();
+            if ( ! res["databases"].isABSONObj() ) {
+                error() << "output of listDatabases isn't what we expected, no 'databases' field:\n" << res << endl;
+            }
+            BSONObj dbs = res["databases"].embeddedObjectUserCheck();
             set<string> keys;
             dbs.getFieldNames( keys );
             for ( set<string>::iterator i = keys.begin() ; i != keys.end() ; i++ ) {
                 string key = *i;
+                
+                if ( ! dbs[key].isABSONObj() ) {
+                    error() << "database field not an object key: " << key << " value: " << dbs[key] << endl;
+                }
 
                 BSONObj dbobj = dbs.getField( key ).embeddedObjectUserCheck();