Near Missie for lucky Nemo (From Bridport and Lyme Regis News)

Near Missie for lucky Nemo

12:01pm Thursday 9th July 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share

NEMO the flying fish thought he’d had his chips when he found himself being picked up and carried to the bed of a totally blind Jack Russell after his leap for freedom went badly wrong.

Miraculously he survived 15 minutes out of water stuffed to the gills with fluffy dog bedding.

Young Nemo, along with his friends, another golden orf, two goldfish and two shubumpkins, should have been keeping each other company in a bowl while Lynne Towers of ALC Cabs in Salway Ash and flatmate meat inspector Eric Harvey cleaned out their fishtank.

By the time the tank was spotless and Lynne tipped the bowl back in Nemo was gone.

Lynne, who only got her new aquarium a few months ago, said: “After a couple of weeks me and my housemate Eric decided they were well settled and we would clean the tank.

“I netted them all into a bowl while we did the work. When the water was settled I tipped the bowl into the tank.

“Then horror of horrors I checked the tank and there were only five fish.”

Frantically they searched everywhere logical they could think of and then everywhere illogical.

“Bear in mind this was a good 15 minutes after I had put the fish back in the tank. I was still hunting around the TV when Eric suddenly shouted ‘I’ve got it’.

“Well to be honest it didn’t look happy.”

So not happy in fact that Nemo was floating upsidedown in his tank with white fluff hanging out of his gills.

Never say die, Lynne took him out and, racked with guilt, carefully pulled as much fluff out as she could and put him back.

“He finally began slowly swimming but wouldn’t go near the other fish. I couldn’t believe he was alive after the trauma he had been through and the time he had been out of the water.”

Luckily for the newly-christened Nemo, Missie, the nine-year-old Jack Russell, prefers French cuisine to the traditional English fish dish.

“She eats frogs and toads she finds in the garden but there wasn’t a mark on the orf so obviously fish musn’t be to her taste!

“Eric and I worked out that when I tipped the bowl into the tank he must have jumped out onto the floor where Missie found him, picked him up and took him to her bed, which is where he must have sucked in the white fluffy bedding.”

• Print
• Email
• Share