This was my dog's nemesis. He fought many a valiant battle trying to wrest control of the TV from this evil device. Sadly the dog never won and wound up with a severe TV remote inferiority complex.

Yup, it is an early TV remote. We had a Zenith TV which used one. We would leave the house and it was almost always turned on when we came home. We were suspecting ghosts until one day we noticed the dog walk by and the "jingle" of the tags on his collar turned the TV of. We found out that you could shake the collar and get all kinds of random actions. Changing channels, volume, on/off. You could also do it by dropping keys. Almost any clanking together of metal had the potential to reproduce the pitch. We finally had to unplug the damn thing every time we left so the dog did not watch TV all day.

Master of my domain
Dark Gray
XL

Damn...forgot the shirt info...is it too late?
Master of My Domain Name, XL Black

It is a tube squeezing device...you know for something like a tube of toothpaste.