Dear Most Esteemed and Knowledgeable Kitties:
I have two cats who like to chew on cords. They will be three years old in May. We use as many cord covers as possible but they chew on those too. I’ve read lots of ideas on this but wonder what your suggestion is. I thought they would outgrow this by now. We feel like we have to watch their every move and it’s frustrating sometimes. What do you suggest? Thanks.
~ Teresa
Siouxsie: Wire chewing is pretty darn frustrating, Teresa. And Mama should know: Bella’s chewed through three headset cords and done her best to wreck the cord to her LED Christmas lights.
Bella: That’s not fair! They tasted good, and besides, they weren’t plugged in at the time!
Thomas: Bella, you know better.
Bella: I only did it ’cause I was bored and nokitty was paying attention to me.
Siouxsie: That brings up one point about why cats chew on wires: They’re bored. Make sure your cats have plenty of environmental stimulation — vertical space like tall cat trees, catnip toys, little bouncy balls and the like.
Thomas: If your kitties like to chew things, consider getting them one of those rubbery dog chew bones. (They can’t read, so they won’t know the bones are designed for dogs. Tee hee hee!)
Bella: Sometimes cats chew on wires because they’re having mouth discomfort and the chewing makes them feel better, so you may want to get your kitties to the vet to have their teeth checked.
Siouxsie: So there you have the main reasons why cats like to chew. Now what do you do to deter that behavior?
Thomas: You said you already use cord covers, which is great, but there’s one special kind of cord cover that might help them to lose interest in cords altogether.
Bella: It’s called Crittercord [be warned: this is just about the most annoying website ever because everything is a pop-up], and it’s a clear, flexible cord cover just a little bit bigger than the wires themselves, which is infused with a citrus flavor that cats are supposed to dislike. If you buy it online, you might see it listed as Marshall Cord Protector.
Siouxsie: Bitter apple spray is an old standby. Again, the nasty taste is supposed to stop cats from chewing on wires. Other options include Vicks VapoRub, Tabasco sauce, rubbing the wires with a moistened bar of soap, or using double-sided tape to make cord chewing extra-unpleasant.
Thomas: If you’re away a lot, get your cats some fun toys they can use while you’re not in the house. Wall-mounted toys they can bat at or motion-activated cat toys are great.
Bella: If there are certain cords your cats can’t resist chewing, consider getting a deterrent that gets them before they start chewing. Ssscat is a motion-activated device that squirts out an odorless, harmless spray if the cat passes a certain threshold.
Siouxsie: It’s going to take a lot of patience for you to retrain your kitties not to chew wires, but if you keep it up, you will get there.
Thomas: It may take more than one of these methods to get your cats’ teeth off your cords, but it’ll be worth the time for reducing the damage … and the fire hazard potential.
Bella: What about you other readers? Have you had a wire chewer in your household? What did you do to stop the behavior and prevent damage to your wires? Please tell us in the comments!
JaneA Kelley is a punk rock cat mom and award-winning blogger. She is a regular columnist for Catster Magazine, and she and the Paws and Effect Gang share a home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
Thank you very wise and thorough Kitties… sending purrs. Meow, kk
We bought one of these pool noodles and slit it and wrapped it around the wires. It works very well and you can get them at a dollar store cheap. My cats also like to lay on the cords. I wonder if they like the feeling of the electric going through the wires?
I have a boy who chews on everything! He chews the spaghetti straps completely off my pajama tops, any shoe string in sight, all toys that have stings attached ie mousie tails and bouncy strings on wand toys, headset cords, phone cords, charger cords, and he has chewed all the tassels off my good leather bad. Grrrr I love him to pieces but his chewing habit is so annoying.
My buddy chewed cords. He didn’t grow out of it until he was about 4, He still likes to chew on other things (like my face!).
Those bitter anti-chew sprays from the pet store sort of work. Unfortunately the best solution I’ve managed is keeping my most important cords (i.e. the computer) in a separate room that I can close off when I go to work.
My Ambra is a long-time wire chewer. She started when I first adopted her
(around 11 months old). 13 years later and she occasionally still chews an unprotected wire I neglected to cover.
I work in IT (Information Technology) so my house, with many computers, is a target rich environment. She has chewed through power cords, destroying several computers / laptops by shorting out the power supplies, mice and keyboards, TV sets, several DVD players, lamps, vacum cleaners… the list goes on. I’m pretty sure she must have used up a couple of her lives in this high risk behavior which almost caused a fire.
When I first took her to the vet because of this, he said she would grow out of it. Well she never did so I took it upon myself to protect every exposed wire throughout the house using cord protector because bitter apple, Tabasco, pepper, paprika, etc… never deterred her for long. Although using cord protector can be time consuming it is the best way to protect your wires.
To save on costs you can buy large bundles of cord protector at electronics stores (instead of small packages). You can also buy a large roll of 1 inch diameter water tubing (looks like washing machine discharge tubing) from your local hardware store. It’s cheap and once you slice it down the middle you can run several wires through it. I’ve also used clear plastic tubing (barely wide enough to fit your typical power cord) available at your hardware store as well. It is easy to cut into small 1/2 inch segments and fit it around your wire. This provides you with a flexible wire that is much easier to manipulate (cord protectors can be stiff and unwieldly ).
Good luck!
Mike
One of my kitties chews on cords when she’s bored or she wants my attention. She especially enjoys the cords associated with my desktop computer, like the ones that connected the speakers, monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. I went cordless on as many gadgets as I could (keyboard, mouse), but I figured out that the best trick was to hide the cords. She’d go under the desk and reach behind it with her paw and yank on the cords, so I put all the cords behind a large sheet of cardboard, so there isn’t much of anything exposed for her to tug on. Instead of trying to train the cat not to do something that the cat likes to do, sometimes it is easier to physically block the cat from doing that thing. The cardboard was free and has saved me so much annoyance. Chargers and headphones go in drawers when they’re not being used, and it turns out that she’s only interested in the wires that wiggle in an entertaining way or the wires that get her human attention, so my home is mostly safe for now. I wish I’d thought of it years ago.
great information i really enjoyed it. I wrote a very similiar article. One of the things you didn’t mention that you can do with cable management things is try to design some sort of “cable art”. If you are like me I had my cables in an area where I just couldnt hide it and the cable management covers stood out. I some how came up with the idea of deigning it ito a neat little animal. It looks awesome. Check out some pictures in the link
http://www.purekitties.com/cat-chewing-cords-got-solution/