Help me not kill my cat

[Smapti]

My cat has apparently decided that chewing through the wires of my electronics while i'm not home is a fun pastime. In the past month i've had to replace three phone cords, and I came home today to discover that he'd ruined my mouse. Does anyone know of a good way to train a cat not to chew through things like this?

[effac3d]

I guess you could try coating the wires in some sort of distasteful substance.

Or if you're home just spray the cat in the face with water from a spritz bottle whenever you see it chewing.

[jacksen9]

You may want to buy a product from the pet store that can be sprayed on an item or an area. I used a few of these products when my dogs were pups. I think they are somewhat effective. I can't remember the names of these products but if you ask someone in the pet store, they will steer you in the right direction.
pv

[FisherQueen]

One of the products you may find at the pet store is called 'bitter apple,' and is supposed to be intensely unpleasant-tasting to the cat.

I knew a cat who did this with a plugged- in stereo. He didn't die, but he did lose about half of his tongue. His owners re-named him "Lucky," but occasionally call him "Sparky."

[Martiju]

I thought cats were supposed to eat mice....

(someone had to say it!)

Seriously though, we bought some spray from the petshop which contains a harmless (but obviously very distasteful) substance. We spray it on the TV aerial which seems to be the latest thing for our little darlings to eat. The only problem is that it wears off after a day or so.

I've also heard that cats don't like geranium (as in the essential oil) -- but be careful with this as it can burn (dilute it!). Not tried this one myself for that reason.

J

[Guinastasia]

Oh gosh! My Buffy did this to my sister's speaker cord. My dad was able to splice it together, thank god.

I agree with the distasteful substance. How old is Kitty? Is it possible that his teeth are bothering him? Buffy was just a kitten and teething at the time.

[AK dog doc]

You might also check with your vet - bitter apple does work for many animals, but vets usually also have other noxious-tasting items which may work better if your kitty is resistant to bitter apple. Tabasco can often work in a pinch, but some cats like the salsa flavors. It is QUITE important that you do stop your kitty from chewing since he could actually electrocute himself (fatally or non-fatally, but neither is recommended). Be aware that if the cat does taste the noxious sybstance, he may drool from the taste - however, drooling may also be seen with electrocution injury, so if anything besides drooling is going on, I'd err to the side of caution and at least call to talk to your vet. You may have to re-apply the chew-stop (whatever kind you use) though many cats learn not to chew on things after a few tries... however, applying stuff to your cords is way less hassle than trying to CPR your cat in the front seat of your car on the way to the hospital.
If you can give him a good alternative outlet for his biting/chewing instincts, that would be helpful... then you're not just telling him "don't do this" but also "do this better thing instead". And some hard-core cases require hiding or putting a physical barrier around the cords to protect the kitty (determined little munchkins that they are).
Good luck!

[odd-socks]

Along with Ak dog doc I was going to suggest a physical barrier around the cords. You know the type of insulation that plumbers put around pipework? You could see it there's similar for electrical wiring? Might help if all else fails?

[bernse]

Lock the cat in the basement/room without chewable items when your not home.

[richardb]

We had a cat who did this until he grew out of it. Phone cords, mouse cords, speaker cords, etc.

In many cases, it was easier just replacing the cords when they stopped working than to try to protect them from the cat!

What did work: in many cases, I was just able to use duct tape to tape down the cords (for example, the speaker cords that used to hang loose between the back of the computer to the speakers just got taped down to the edge of the desk), and for cords that needed to be "loose" to some degree, I found I could use two pieces of flat duct tape to "sandwich" the cord. The cord was still loose, but the cat now had only the edges of the relatively thick duct tape that extended about an inch on either side of the cord to chew on. Perhaps if he really tried he could have still bitten down through the middle of the cord, but since his intent was never really to destroy my cords (as easy as it is for us to think that's his motivation) all the kitten really wanted to do was to teethe and chew on any loose item so the sides of the duct tape proved good enough.

Certainly a cheap, non-toxic and easy solution! Hope this helps.

Good luck!