A taste for cables

[desperance]

This house is very full of cables. No room has more than one double socket, and some rooms have more than twelve electrical appliances permanently plugged in. This leads to lots of cabling snaking around between extensions etc. I have always been aware that this was not exactly the best idea, and a complete rewiring job is somewhere on my list of unaffordable priorities.

Being a cat, Barry has always expressed a fondness for long flexible dangly things. It's just that today, he seems to be going in for serious cable-chewing, and I'm starting to worry.

In other news: I seem to be pathologically tired. Which is not good, whatever its cause, because I have too much to do. I have just this hour got to the end of a story, which I would cheerfully tick off the ticky-list if I had one; except that the third set of proofs arrived this morning. It's a treadmill. Here is a picture of a treadmill. See the happy Chinese peasants, fruitfully at work. That's how I feel. And I don't expect to do much work in the next few days, due to Other Stuff.

I was shopping for Other Stuff this morning, and had Shopping Adventures: to wit, at my favourite butcher's stall in the market, the most extraordinary and interminable exchange between butcher and customer, except that I think they must have been married, because you couldn't be that rude in a retail relationship. She kept asking for stupid things, for which he asked stupid prices, and they called each other stupid; and so on, and on, like stroppy siblings playing shop. But they were, oh, in their fifties. Some people I know would have relished it, and written notes for later recycling. Me, I was dying inside; but as soon as she was - eventually - gone, he beamed at me cheerfully as though it was nothing at all. People are strange.

And then, in the department store delicatessen, I found the blind leading the blind. Literally: a man with a white stick and his eyes firmly closed, leading a woman who was clearly and equally blind. They seemed to know where they were going, in among the freezer cabinets. I was impressed.

Comments

[guipago.livejournal.com]

Put a thin layer of hot sauce on the cables. Not enough to harm them, but enough to put a good taste of it on there for when barry goes to chew.

Kitties don't like hot sauce.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'll try this. Not entirely convinced that Barry won't go "ooh, yum, I like hot sauce!" - but it's worth a try...

[guipago.livejournal.com]

Our Loki kinda likes hot sauce but not enough to keep chewing.

:)

You have to keep up with it and it has to be on *all* the cords.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Will do. Sigh. There is an awful lot of cords. (Still, at least in this house I'm not going to run out of hot sauce...)

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

William has taken to chewing the modem cable. I suspect that this is because it's the only one that is out in the open. If he could get to the others I'm sure he would.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

See guipago's advice above; if necessary, I can lend hot sauce...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

PS - how the hell do you organise a house with only one cable visible?

And are these skills teachable?

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

Indeed. In theory, having the modem cable out in the wild is only going to be temporary until Candy gets into DIY mode and drills holes through walls and such-like. Until that time, I think we're okay...

Although some of your hot sauce could be very useful for other things. Like, y'know, adding flavour to food.

[devonellington.livejournal.com]

My first line of defense for cord-chewing cats is spraying them with apple bitter. If that doesn't work, there's a spray with pepper in it. They might get over the distate for apple bitter, but not pepper.

[costumeimp.livejournal.com]

I think everyone here has hit the nail on the head concerning anti-chewing sauces for your electronic cords and cables. My Roo is a big chewer herself, and it can be quite frustrating and nerve wreaking, 'specially when you catch them chewing through a cord on the halogen lamp. Devon nailed it with Bitter Apple or a pepper spray. I purchased a bottle of "Fooey" that I regularly apply to my cords and it works, providing you remember to do ALL the cables, and then remember to reapply every month or so. You should be able to find a variety of things at any pet store of any real size. I chose the Fooey based on the advice of a store employee who was having difficulty stopping his rabbit from chomping on his cables.

With that said, does anyone have any advice on how to stop said kittens from clawing up walls instead of using the rather expensive scratching post that Daddy got for them?!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

With that said, does anyone have any advice on how to stop said kittens from clawing up walls instead of using the rather expensive scratching post that Daddy got for them?!

Give it up? You can try encouraging them to the scratching-post with catnip and such, but beyond that... (Mind you, I have a friend who claims to have entirely trained her cat out of antisocial attitudes by aid of a water-pistol, but you'd need to be a more determined person than I am, with a heart of flint and a different set of priorities. Me, I have Barry-scratched walls and show them off to visitors, "Just see how high he can stretch...!")

[costumeimp.livejournal.com]

Of course they are clever kittens and refuse to claw my walls when I'm actually present in the apartment. You see, they Know it's wrong and I won't approve... I'm such a sucker too. They soak up the praise for good behavior and ignore the condemnation of the inappropriate behavior.

Sigh... My mother cursed me years ago... "One day son, you are going have one Just Like You..." Dammit, I hate it when that woman is right!!! hehehe