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Protecting Your Gear from Pets?
EvilJoven asks: "About a month ago I spent quite a large chunk of change on a new system only to have my cat chew through the VGA source cable of my brand new display. Over the course of the last few years my cat has cost me nearly $300CDN in repair and replacement costs due to chewed cables including a few power cables which are not only a pain to replace but potentially fatal to the animal and a fire hazard. So far the best solution I've found to stop this is wrapping all my cables in Snap-On Wire Protectors (about $6CDN for 3m at Canadian Tire in the Automotive section) but this is a rather unsightly solution. Due to the fact that I live in a one bedroom apartment restricting my cats access to my hardware is not an option. I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on a better way to protect gear from animals."
When I was young, my parents experimented with
putting stuff on my nails to stop me from biting
them. It tasted terrible. Perhaps the same could
be applied to cables in your apartment?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Suggestion: Your cat is trying to say he or she is not happy. Get another cat so that he will have something to do while you are at work. They will chase each other around and make noises like a herd of cattle, but they won't chew cables.
Cats usually don't chew on cables, so this is an indicator that something is wrong. And it's not your cables.
It might be an indicator that the two of you have a relation problem. The cat may want more attention. Especially if the cat does not go out of the house, you are the only one "social contact" for the cat. Play with the cat, pet the cat, crawl the cat. Or if you don't think that you have the time to do so, give away your cat to someone who cares for it; and get your self a cat doll.
Maybe your cat is a real hunter but has no other prey than those dangling cables. Get or make some cat toys. Remember: "Everything not nailed down is a cat toy." You just have to make sure that your cat toys are more attractive than your hardware.
A last idea, to cure the symptoms but not the disease: place your cables in flexible tubes. IKEA has flexible tubes in black and white that can be wrapped around the cables without disconnecting them. Unless your cat can look onto your table while standing on the floor, it will have a hard time chewing through those tubes.
Tux2000
Denken hilft.
This would probably result in the cat peeing and shitting on the cables.