Cord Chewing
by SassyJazmine For years my sisfur Jessie has been a cord chewer. She has chewed through phone cords (once when Meowmie was talking on it), speaker wires (her favorite) and any other cord she can get her little teeth on. You should see what she did to the Christmas Tree one year. The cords that went to the external speakers in the living room were really quite funny to look at, they were spliced every where and held together with electrical tape. Jessie loved them. This of course made Mom crazy, not only did it cost her money to replace everything that Jessie damaged, but it was very dangerous for Jessie too. She could suffer burns on her mouth, or possibly start a fire. They say one possibility for a cat that chews on electrical cords is boredom. Well in this case it isn't true, she has more toys than the local toy store. Some say she is attracted to the plastic insulation on the wires and suggest putting a plastic straw on the floor near the wires. She will see the straw and play with it rather than chew on the wire. Well don't believe it, she played with the straw, batted it under the fridge, then chewed on the wires anyway. Someone suggested Tabasco Sauce on the cords. Mom tried that too, but said it turned the cords a yucky color. One good thing, Jessie didn't like the taste of it. Someone suggested the old timey remedy for thumb sucking called Thumb. She had a heck of a time finding that in the store, but she did, and tried it too. Jessie sat around coughing and sticking her tongue out a lot, but it didn't stop her from chewing on the cords. So out of pure desperation, Mom got some some cord covers from the computer store, threaded all the little wires through the flexible plastic covers, ran them along the base boards and wound double sided sticky tape on the wires that went from the flexible covers to the lamps, etc. and guess what!!! It works!!! She hasn't chewed up a wire since. Now our house is safer, the wires are safer, and Jessie is safe, from both meowmie and from getting hurt (or worse) from the damaged electrical cords. |
