Dangerous Cat Toy!

I thought I should relate something that happened last night that nearly killed my poor kitten, in the hope it will warn others....

We recently adopted 2 male kittens who are very friendly, playful and reasonably well behaved :)

We bought a lot of equiment and toys for them from a local vets, including the cat toy shown in the attached picture.

This particular toy was the kittens favorite and we would play with them every evening with it, then put it away with the rest of their toys.

Last night while watching TV I suddenly heard a terrible miowing and crying and rushed to see what was wrong.

The kittens had managed to get hold of this toy and had been playing with it. One of them had managed to get the thread wrapped around it's neck several times. The stick it was attached to was jammed stuck by a piece of furniture.

Every time the kitten tried to run away the thread got tighter and tighter and it was choking the kitten! A few minutes later (or if we had been in bed) the kitten would have hung itself!

I managed to free the stick and cut the thread from around it's neck (it was very frightened so I now have hands covered in scratches), and fortunately the kitten recovered and is fine now.

If any of you have a similar toy please either throw it away or hide it and only use it supervised.

I think the vets should stop selling these toys or at least put warnings on them.