A Warning, kind of

Saturday night I was on the computer and I look over into the kitchen and Ruby has her front leg sticking out at a weird angle and her head is leaning back.

Twinkle and Louie are sitting in front of her. just looking at her.
At first I thought they were all playing with one another but then I realize they are just staring at her.
I get up and walk into the room and pick her up. Her eyes are BIG and her tongue is "rolling" around in her mouth and it looks grey. Something was VERY wrong.
I call my sister and urgently ask her to come right away, that I thought Ruby was having a MAJOR stroke!
(Doc had told me to start giving her a 1/4 baby aspirin a day because she's been having mini-strokes.)
So I'm on the phone with my sister while I'm trying to get my finger in Ruby's mouth and hold down her tongue so that I can push a piece of aspirin down her throat and all the while I am FREAKING out.
Suddenly I noticed something black poking out behind one of her back teeth.
I get my finger in there and scoop around and pull out of her throat a thin twisted piece of plastic!
Suddenly she's acting normal. She was choking! OMG!
My heart can't take this stuff.
I shoved the 1/4 aspirin down her throat and go take 2 for myself. 

I had no idea where that plastic came from. I am very careful about that sort of thing.

If a dog toy gets chewed, I toss it.

If I unwrap something with a twist tie, I immediately drop it in the garbage.

I didn't have a clue.

I thought about it over and over. What could have it come from?

Then it hit me. I let Jimmy chew on empty 2 liter bottles and also water bottles.

They actually make dog toys where you can stick an empty water bottle inside of them to make a "crackling" noise, so they must be OK to use, right?

And I always first throw the caps away...

So I went over and picked up one of Jimmy's "toys".

Of course he immediately sat up excited. I looked at the tops and realized that there is a plastic "ring" left on the top of the bottles where the caps were attached.

But if someone chewed on it... yeah, it could come loose.

The thing is, they were all white!

Still, I threw them all away. Jimmy followed me around and bounced up and down and then stopped.

Why are you throwing out my toys?!

I went and got his monkey off of the top of the dryer and threw it to him, then he was happy again.

I still don't know where that black plastic came from.

But I'm happy that I discovered those "rings" on the plastic bottles

and even happier that I was home when Ruby needed me.