New puppy or kitten chew through your $40 HDMI cable or your $80 charger for your laptop? It's not uncommon for young animals to "mouth" objects, but it can be expensive. Instead of getting rid of the newest member of your household, try these inexpensive and animal friendly tips to getting them to stop chewing on your cables, or anything else for that matter.
First, try simple discipline. A spray bottle of water, for example, is a good place to start for getting your pet to stop doing anything. Just make sure that if you're using a spray bottle you already have, it didn't have household cleaners in it previously. The next step of escalation is to try putting something bitter or sour on the cables. Lemon juice is the most commonly used variation of this. Simply rub or spray it onto the cable, making sure you're not getting it on any of the connection ends; The acid from the lemon juice could damage them.
If that doesn't work, spicy is the next step. Pet stores often sell a variation of this for this exact purpose. Generally made from peppers, it's possible to do at home, but please be careful about the strength of the spice, be cautious about allergies for your pets, and make sure the pepper isn't poisonous to your pet. For these reasons, I generally recommend people buy the store brand as they've been tested for all of these things before being sold on the market. If that doesn't work, simply try and keep your cables covered for now. Your young pet will grow out of this phase quickly, so don't give up on it.
Practical Tip of the Day:
One tip for keeping cats off surfaces is to put aluminum foil on it. (Cats hate the stuff evidently.) DON'T do that with your cables! Aluminum can carry an electrical current, so if your pet bites through the aluminum and into a cable carrying electricity it could do serious, or even fatal, damage to them.
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