My poor Piglet

[WELOVESPUPPIES]

As some of you know I have a koi pond. My largest tri colored is named Piglet. Well this last weekend we decided to enlarged our pond by removing the shelf in it, taking it from just around 875 gallons to 1300 gallons. It was a lot of work, my husband probably dug 2 tons of dirt out. We had to remove all the water and fish and put them in a kiddie pool with a pump and covered them with another kiddie pool. We started at 3 pm Friday and worked until about 8 or so. Covered the fish for the night. The next morning at 8 am everyone was still fine. I uncovered them while we were working on the pond so that there would not be to much heat trapped in there with them being covered. We in the middle of the day hubby decided he wanted to jump in the pool to cool off (not the kiddie pool LOL) We were out back by the pool less than 15 minutes. When I came out front their was blood all over the side walk and front entry way. I looked over and right in the sun was Piglet lying covered in dirt, dried out and not moving:( I grabbed her up really quick and stuck her in the pool. She floated belly up and was barely breathing. I felt sick and knew it was all my fault as I should have either stayed out front by them or covered them before leaving. I was holding her rightside up when Bill came around front and I told him what happened. He said he did not think she would make it but try pulling her back and fourth through the water to pull oxygen over her gills. I was not giving up, after an hour she was finally holding herself rightside up, moving her fins and her breathing was getting back to normal. Over the next half hour or so she went on her side and we immediately righted her again. After that she was better, started swimming but was not quite herself yet. About 5-6 hours later we were finally done and ready to put the fish back in the pond. We decided to catch Piglet first as to cause her less stress by getting her out of the way of catching everyone else. We placed her in the pond and started catching everyone else. When were were completely finished catching everyone...all 24 of them, we noticed Piglet was on the bottom belly up. This time when we got her to the surface she was not breathing. Bill told me he she was gone and I said okay (of course holding back that I just wanted to cry:() and right after that he said wait I think her tail just moved and her gills were now just barely moving, unless you looked really closely you would have never noticed. I sat down on the edge of the pond held her by her tall and pulled her back and forth in the water once again for about 20-30 minutes, then all of a sudden she was trying to free herself from my hand with little jerks but I was afraid to let go because if she needed my help again I might not be able to get to her quick enough. I held her for another few minutes and finally released her. She stayed right side up!! She is a little banged up but she is doing fine.
The one on the right is Piglet.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa103/marmadukechamp/DSC_0034-1.jpg

[Pam]

Wow! What a riveting account of little Piglet's ordeal. It's good that you and your hubby knew to pull her back and forth in the water to get more oxygen. I would have never known to do that. I guess it is sort of like CPR for a fish. I am so glad that she is OK. She is beautiful! Is that picture after her ordeal or before?

[3muttsandaboston]

She is a beautiful fish. I'm glad you could save her!

[chocolatepuppy]

What a story! I was afraid to get to the end of the story for fear she didn't make it, thank goodness she did. :)

[Freedom]

Piglet is large! What a gripping tale. By now you would know, seems she has fully recovered.

Do you think she jumped out of the kiddy pool? Or a bird helped her out??

My goodness what a story she has to tell all the others in the new pond!

[lute]

What an event! I'm glad you saved Piglet.

[critter crazy]

Wow!!!! Boy what a lucky Fish she is!! I sure hope she continues to do well, she is just gorgeous!! Love her coloring!!

[WELOVESPUPPIES]

Wow! What a riveting account of little Piglet's ordeal. It's good that you and your hubby knew to pull her back and forth in the water to get more oxygen. I would have never known to do that. I guess it is sort of like CPR for a fish. I am so glad that she is OK. She is beautiful! Is that picture after her ordeal or before?

Thanks to Hubby's quick thinking about the pulling her back and forth part. I was way to close to the situation to even focus at first, all I kept thinking was "I Killed Piglet". This picture is before she was injuried. Now she has a few scared spots with missing or loose scales. Her left eye was a little scraped from the sidewalk so I am hoping it completely heals as far as her vision is concerned.


Piglet is large! What a gripping tale. By now you would know, seems she has fully recovered.

Do you think she jumped out of the kiddy pool? Or a bird helped her out??

My goodness what a story she has to tell all the others in the new pond!

Yes Piglet is probably about 15" long. She is a big girl. She is back to eating and swimming with her buddies but she sometimes hides off to the side a bit but she is coming around. She jumped, she is too large for most of the bigs we have here and if a heron or something had gotten her I would have never found her, they would have eatten her. She has no marks even though there was blood on the concrete. Oh she def must have told everyone because no one else tried escaping. When I was in the pool with her holding her up and pulling her around the others kept coming up as if to see if she was okay, even though I was right there, all they were worried about was their friend.

Thanks everyone, she is a beautiful girl...I hope I have many, many more years with her and all her friends.

[MoonandBean]

So glad Piglet is ok and that you didn't give up! Next time Piglet has to tell us a story, though, could he write it just like Chopper does? :) :) :)

[Argranade]

Oh poor Piglet, I'm so glad and very happy your O.k!

Your mommy is your life saver standing by your side! :D

[WELOVESPUPPIES]

LOL....yes next time I will have "Piglet" tell her story. :D I am so glad I did not give up.