Preventing a Scare

So I just had perhaps the biggest scare of my life and I want to learn more to prevent it from happening. Well, prevent me from being so helpless anyway. Chances are, it'll happen again. Especially if I'm serious about dedicating my life to animals. And I am.

So I fed my cats like I normally do. They get a mix of dry and wet. They won't eat it any other way. Not when I'm the one feeding them.

I was talking to my mom when I noticed Ash acting weird. Shaking his head and pawing at his mouth. I should have reacted quicker. I know that now, but I couldn't tell what was going on. He had his back to me. I pointed it out the my mom and at first we thought something was stuck in his teeth so I put my finger in his mouth. Nothing.

We quickly realized he was choking. And I didn't know what to do. I don't know what happened, but he calmed down and stopped choking. He's fine now, but he very well could have died. I was absolutely terrified. I don't want to lose him out any of my cats. Any animal. So I want to know what to do to help a cat who's choking? What can I do to prevent myself from being so helpless and my cat from possibly dying? Please help me because I don't know if I can go through that again. I'm pretty sure I almost had a heart attack.

I have never thought of knowing about something like that I am responding so I can follow and know what to do too. 

Gosh, it's really uncommon for a cat to choke on food.

I suppose it would be like any other breathing thing, I imagine if it were one of my girls, I would go behind them and put one hand on the upper tummy and my other hand would wack her back a couple times, if that didn't work I would likely do a heimlich maneuver with the hand thats at the tummy, make a fist just below the ribs and give a fast sharp bear hug like motion upward and against the front of me.

Hoping like crazy that it wasn't too hard and did damage!

99% of the time, with animals or humans, no matter how bad it looks, they can clear it themselves. If that 1% does happen and they can not, you will know because they will start to go limp. Then it's time to take action.

Thanks for the advice. My mom attempted a couple of things and at first it didn't seem like it did anything, but it cleared after a moment. He was seriously freaking out. I don't think I could sit back and watch. Honestly, it's a good thing I think before I act. Otherwise I would have stuck my finger down his throat and risked making it worse. That poor cat is always getting one problem or another. They've never choked on their own food before. What's worse, I think I handled it worse than Ash. He took only a moment to recover and start grooming. I sat on the kitchen floor for a good five minutes of so trying to find to terms with the fact that I could have lost him.