Goldfish undergoes brain surgery, is now 'swimming happily' again

When George the goldfish developed a large brain tumour, making eating and swimming a struggle, his owners, Lyn Orton and Pip Joyce, couldn’t bear to part with their 10-year-old pet. So they paid $200 for a life-saving operation that would enable George to keep swimming for another 10 to 20 years.

“[The] fish was having trouble eating, getting around, getting bullied by the other fish,” Dr. Tristan Rich, a veterinarian at Lort Smith Animal Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, told KTRK.

Rich shared details of the procedure on Facebook.

First he put George in a bucket of water containing an anesthetic. When the fish was asleep, Rich began surgery on the small fish. He pumped water into his gills to keep him breathing on the operating table.

"The actual procedure is quick and straightforward," Rich told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"[But] it’s quite fiddly, as you can imagine with an 80-gram fish, and you’ve got to make sure you can control any blood loss. He can only lose about half a mil [millilitre]."

After the 45-minute operation — and carefully closing the wound with sutures and tissue glue — Rich gave George pain killers and antibiotics.

According to the Lort Smith Animal Hospital’s Facebook page, “Soon afterwards he took a couple of breaths on his own and started swimming around.”

George has since returned to the pond he shares with 38 other goldfish, and is once again “swimming happily" with his peers.

"It (the operation) was so impressive, everyone was just amazed," Orton told the Herald Sun.

"Yeah, it’s a goldfish, all creatures great and small," Joyce told KTRK.

“A goldfish is a pet, a family pet, just as important really. They bring a lot of pleasure, these fish in this pond, they’re beautiful to sit and watch.”