I’ve never had a cat try to swallow a toy. The favorite these days is a pipe cleaner that gets batted around from room to room.
Since they were all strays, I guess they can tell the difference between a real meal and a toy.
Outdoor cats have a better grasp. Indoor cats gets senile. We have two primarily outdoor and two indoor. The indoor cars are weird. One of them sings to her toys and sings after she poops. She is also bulimic. The other indoor cat is food-insecure. Come Spring, they are all going outside.
I think this particular toy was dangerous not because it was so small, but because it felt uncannily like a real mouse - the same very silky pelt, just like a Swiss Webster. (I’m wondering what they used to make it.)
The cats have other toys that are nearly as small, but they’re hard, or made of something that doesn’t feel ‘mousy’ at all. They’ve never taken those entirely into their mouths.
-JT