Preparing the pond

Spring is finally here. We put in a pond last year and we were worried about how the fish would handle the winter. We had a heater that kept a foot of unfrozen water so the gases could escape. The fish hibernate during the winter but since this was our first winter we didn't know what to expect. We started the waterfall and cleaned out the filter. There was a lot of string algae but we were able to pull most of it out. The fish seem to be fine and are as hungry as ever. Maggie loves to watch them swim around. So far she has left them alone. When we first brought her home she thought she could walk across the pond but found out pretty fast that she would have to sink or swim. She doggy paddled over the end and got out like nothing happened. I am going to try to add a video to show the fish swimming but I haven't figured out how yet.