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Cat chewing on every cord he sees!
CheesecakeRecipe
"Should not be allowed to post in the Steam Thread" - IsornSqualor Victoria, Squalor Victoria!Registered User regular
"Should not be allowed to post in the Steam Thread" - IsornSqualor Victoria, Squalor Victoria!Registered User regular
A few months back my family decided to get another cat, after having lost our previous one near 10 ish years ago. We adopted a lovely Maine Coon mix cat, who started out as the most lovable thing. Very affectionate, though a little scratch and bite happy. He's toned down his scratching of people and furnature a bit but his chewing is out of control. Over the past week alone he's taken out two laptop chargers, a clock, a phone charger, a sound machine power cord, a wii sensor bar and god knows what else we've not checked yet.
Upon suggestion of a vet and some research online, we were told to try wiping the cords down with lemon juice, which didn't do anything but make him lick his lips before continuing to wail on our test subject. We then picked up some Bitter Apple spray, which upon application made us feel like our throats had been assaulted by pepper spray. The test proved unsuccessful again, this time he just bit the tester in half and continued on his way to chewing it. At this point, the parents are considering getting rid of the cat, but I insist that we can find a way to stop him. I just don't know how. Have you guys ever had a cat this difficult to train off of something, any suggestions for us to try?
Upon suggestion of a vet and some research online, we were told to try wiping the cords down with lemon juice, which didn't do anything but make him lick his lips before continuing to wail on our test subject. We then picked up some Bitter Apple spray, which upon application made us feel like our throats had been assaulted by pepper spray. The test proved unsuccessful again, this time he just bit the tester in half and continued on his way to chewing it. At this point, the parents are considering getting rid of the cat, but I insist that we can find a way to stop him. I just don't know how. Have you guys ever had a cat this difficult to train off of something, any suggestions for us to try?
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you could try rubbing them with a hot sauce he may detest that more than the citrus stuff.
get some foil tape and cover them in that, cats don't like the taste of foil.
and I hear double sided tape could also work.
hang up a "sacrificial" cord, something he's allowed to chew on and maybe he'll ignore other ones.
or they make cable covers just for this purpose, go by names like crittercord or chewsafe etc. or just get some rubber hose and use that.
and if all that fails, you could use metal electrical conduit, no cat could chew into that.
The Apple spray sorta helped, but they still desire cords. So I've taken to just hiding the types cords they go for. Making it so the cords can't really be gotten to.
Obviously I'm not going to recommend that, because that's fucking horrible. When Amy's cat chewed through my phone charger cord, I got a water pistol. Any time Reuben chewed something other than food or his little stuffed toy mouse, he got squirted in the face with water.
That being said, my mom used cable sheaths similar to what a case modder would use inside of a computer case. It's corrugated plastic conduit, and it bundles up cables nice and tight, and fairly chew resistant. That will accommodate TV's, computers, and entertainment centers, but won't be of much help with laptop cords.
Moving the cables/putting them where he can't get them won't really work. We're a pretty wired up family with a lot of electronics and hiding all of them would probably require holes put in walls or something. We have to keep the doors for certain rooms closed when no one is in them just to make sure he won't go to town on them, but the summer heat turns those rooms into a sauna. We're still taking those precautions where we can.
Yeah I'd not planned on hitting the poor thing even though my parents like to jokingly insist with the whole "back in my day" deal. Spraybottles of water don't affect him though, he has a strange fetish for water and will jump into sinks/tubs/showers every time he hears the water running. Even flushing the toilet can send him into supercat mode trying to get to the bathroom. Spraying him just makes him look at you for a second and then he continues doing what he was doing.
I'll keep an eye out if there are any further suggestions and update on how progress is.
Nice. Cats aren't "assholes", they're just intelligent enough to work out other ways to get whatever they want.
So far the damage is the 2 HDMI cables, 2 ADSL Microfilters, my shaver power cable and a power cable.
This wasnt a problem until about 3 weeks ago so im thinking adult teeth coming through thing? Is that even a thing for dogs?
I didn't see anyone else mention these. I think anyone who lets rabbits run through the house has to deal with this problem, and they usually buy plastic/rubber/metal sheaths to protect all their cabling.
That said, this may be less effective if you can't position it so you are not setting the damn thing off all the time. What I would recomend is trying to use a can of compressed air, which usually works better than a water gun, whenever the cat goes near a cord, and then setting up the motion sensors for when you are not in the room. They learn surprisingly quick, and if you stay consistent for a month or so, they will likely break the habit all together. The key is to break the routine, which is a big deal for a cat, and get them set in a different routine. Cats hate switching things up, so once they are conditioned to a non-cord chewing lifestyle, the odds of them changing back on their own is small.
That has been used with the two cats I live with. It's pretty effective. However, the batteries drain kinda quick, and you'll always be setting the thing off. It's best to set up, and then fire and forget. Maybe go to work, or take off for the night. The cat will figure out real quick what to avoid. It's just the consistency of always keeping air and batteries on hand.