Suicidal fish

What is it with fish being suicidal?

I've just fed my tanks, and half way through I heard our elderly dog Saxon yelp as she jumped up onto the spare bed. So I dropped everything and went to go check that she was ok as she has hurt her leg in the past on that bed. I know I'm asking for trouble, but in my haste I forgot to put the lid of the tank back on.

I then popped downstairs to pinch some algae wafers from dads tank, and then headed back up. Replaced the lid and went to switch the light off when I notice something at the back of the tank. Leaning forward I realise it's my male golden panchax. I lost the female this morning (I think the male hounded her to death as I lost the other female months ago in the same way), so I thought "Oh bloody hell, I've lost them both today". Picked the poor little bugger up and was examining him when he started twitching.

Needless to say I dropped in back in the tank at lightning speed. Apart from being covered in dog hair he seemed fine enough, and after a few minutes of swimming about the hair dislodged.

So. Lucky bloody panchax gets to live another day, and I've learnt not to forget that they're jumpers!

I have no idea why fish jump, its heartbreaking loosing a fish that way, its how I lost my male Rotkeil , I had one of the babies to the same jump but I heard it flapping at the back of the tank, trouble was it was in the kitchen where the dogs sleep and the amount of dog hair behind the tanks is increadible, it was down there a good 15 mins before I could reach it and I thought it was a gonner but he survived

I lost the betta in my signature that way too. It's a horrible way for the poor buggers to die.

Lucky panchax is swimming about happily this morning, so that's all good