Woman looking to adopt a dog falls for a betta fish instead

Carolina Diz pictured herself with a dog when she first decided to get a pet. "I honestly really wanted a dog, but I just didn't have the space or time for one. So I kind of just thought, 'What's the next best thing?'" she said. In 2019 the former video editor and producer at The Dodo brought home her first betta fish and named him April. As a first-time fish parent she expected little more than something pretty to glance at now and then. "I thought they would be very low-maintenance and kind of like a step up from plants," Diz said. That changed when she stumbled across people teaching their bettas tricks. "Apparently you can teach them to follow your finger, to weave through a little obstacle course. You can teach them how to jump through a hoop. And as soon as I read that, I had a goal." She began with April, starting simply by getting him to follow her finger. Bettas eat only one small meal a day, so each training session offered just a single chance at a reward. "You do something once and you reward them with the pellet. Then you just cross your fingers and hope they remember that for the next day." Once he had that down she held a hair tie underwater for him to swim through, then raised the makeshift hoop little by little until it sat above the surface. Eventually April jumped through it. Over the years Diz brought home three more bettas—Scar, Katara and Napoleon—and taught three of them the hoop jump. Katara, who arrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, proved the most eager student. With so much time at home Diz built her an impressive set of skills. "She could jump through a hoop, she could weave through chopsticks. She could push a little bottle cap that I painted like a soccer ball, so it looked like she was playing soccer." She laughed about the timing: "While everyone was making sourdough starter, I was training my fish to jump through a hoop." Katara won the Betta Olympics in 2020. The fish seemed to know her personally. "Katara could recognize my face and my hands and would immediately do tricks for me but not for others. When I was away for a while and came back, she'd literally come to the front of the tank and just wag like a dog — it was so cute. She'd just get really, really excited and wiggle." As her interest deepened Diz focused on giving the fish the best possible home. She settled on a 10-gallon tank equipped with a heater and filter. Every other week she changed the water and tested pH and ammonia levels to keep conditions steady. "It's easy to think that you're just trying to keep them alive, but I really wanted to make them thrive." The biggest surprise was how different each fish turned out to be. April was energetic and curious while Scar was shy and sweet, so she approached them in distinct ways and formed different bonds with each one.