For their nick-of-time acts, Toby, a 2-year-old dog, and Winnie, a cute cat, were named Dog and Cat of the Year by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. As Amy Paul choked  on a piece of apple at her home, her dog jumped up, landing hard on her chest and forcing the piece in her throat out. When the Keesling family of Indiana was about to be killed by carbon monoxide, their cat clawed at the wife Cathy's hair until she woke up and called for help. No one could explain their timely heroics. Both pets were rescued by their owners in _ -----Toby as a 4-week-old thrown into a garbage bin to die, and Winnie as a week-old orphan hiding under a barn, so helpless that Cathy's husband, Eric, had to feed her milk with an eyedropper. As the Keeslings recalled it, a gas-driven pump being used broke down, spreading carbon monoxide through the house. By the time Winnie went to rescue, the couple's 14-year-old son was already unconscious. "Winnie jumped on the bed and was clawing at me, with a kind of angry sound," Cathy Keesling said. The state police responding to her 911 call said the family was only minutes from death, judging by the amount of poisonous gas in the house. Amy Paul's husband was at his job when she took a midday break from making jewelry and bit into an apple. "Normally I peel them, but I read in Good Housekeeping Magazine that the skin has all the nutrients, so I ate the skin, and that's what caused me to choke," she recalled. "I couldn't breathe and I was in panic when Toby jumped on me. He never does that, but he did, and saved my life." Both Toby and Winnie accompanied their owners to the awards luncheon. What caused the carbon monoxide spreading through the house?
A pump breaking down. A driver breaking into the house. The burning gas. The poisonous gas.