Woman pays small fortune to save pet goldfish from choking on a rock

An Australian woman has set an impossible example for grand gestures in the name of love.

Emma Marsh parted with A$500 ($377) when her pet goldfish Courage presented with the life threatening condition of "mouth-blocked-by-pebble," the Courier Mail reported. The 13-gram (0.4 oz) fish mistook the stone for a hearty meal and was unable to spit it back out.

Courage was rushed to the vet where his owner was faced with a harsh choice: Let natural selection take its course or front up for an expensive aquatic operation complete with anesthetic to remove the offending pebble.

Here's the maths: Courage the goldfish is 5 centimetres (1.9 inch) long and the pebble, which was lodged lengthways across his mouth, measured in at 9 millimetres (0.35 inches).

Courage tried to eat a rock that was so big he couldn't spit it out again, prompting his owner to pay 4,166 percent of what he was purchased for, A$12, to save his life.

Conquer first had to be anaesthetised, a process that involved dripping an anaesthetic agent into the water until he dozed off, allowing the veterinarians to remove the stone.

Truly the bond between Marsh and Courage was strong, with a distressed Marsh adding that "if we did nothing he (Courage) would have starved to death."

Brisbane Bird and Exotics Veterinary Services documented the fishy operation via Facebook along with an assurance that Courage recovered from the operation nicely.

Let's hope for the sake of his owner's savings that Courage can stay out of trouble and remember that pebbles are friend, not food.