This is my dumpster fish, Perry!

Before I had my first baby I was really into aquariums. I worked a split shift at a veterinarian’s office as a kennel tech for their boarding facility. I headed out to work bright and early one day and I saw a 50 gal tank with a canister filter (one of those really nice expensive ones) sitting by the dumpster. I was like “oh sad someone’s fish died!” But the filter and everything seemed to be in really good condition so I ran back inside and asked my husband to grab it for me so I could clean it all out and test it when I got home from work and upgrade my 30 gal tank to a 50.

I was at work for about 4 hours taking care of the pets and when I got home and looked everything over, there was a hose missing for the filter. So I asked my husband to go scan where everything was dumped outside the dumpster for the missing hose. He took our trash out with it. Didn’t find the hose, so he threw our bag of trash into the dumpster and something bright pink caught his eye. It was the fish that I’m assuming was in the tank, laying on a bag inside the dumpster in a small puddle of garbage juice. He took two seconds to look at him thinking, “poor fish, what a demise.”

And then the fish took a big gasp for air. It was still alive. Just sitting in the dumpster for 4 hours at least, probably more since the tank was there before I woke up for work. He immediately scooped up the fish, ran back to our apartment, and put him in the 30 gal tank I already had set up. This fish lived for 4 more years after being rescued from the dumpster. He was extremely friendly. He would get visibly excited when we came home from anywhere and even let us pet him if we put our hands in the tank.

He popped up in my Facebook memories today, so I figured I would share his story. Idk what kind of person throws a live animal into a dumpster but I’m glad we gave him an extra 4 years of being well cared for and loved.