If you wonder why your cat is so fond of getting into trouble, the answer is easy: it is a cat. Looking for complications carries it in his DNA. And it is that these small cats are explorers, hunters and even when they have all their needs met, their brain induces them to seek new horizons, challenges or games.
For a cat, not staying still is the (necessary) way to feel alive, if there are no prey, it invents them, even when its stomach feels full and it is clear that its home is a haven of peace without any stowaway or alert. For cats it is not a game to constantly search for challenges, it is something very serious in which they put all their efforts.
One of the most dangerous and annoying situations that cats can cause in the home is biting the cables of any appliance, extension cords or lamps. The most complex thing about this situation is that once a cat comes up with the idea of biting the wires in the house, this can become a habit that is difficult to eradicate, because it becomes a habit that appeals to its curiosity and comforts him. Yes, you read correctly, it comforts him. Biting cables is a way of satisfying his need to sink his teeth into something, just as he needs to scratch toys or even the sofa, he also feels the urge to bite and tear objects apart.
The most important thing we can do is prevent our cat from even considering biting a cable, so that it does not acquire the habit and because biting an electrical conductor can be highly dangerous for it and for the house.
We will achieve this by giving him all the elements he needs to satisfy his need to capture, play and investigate, put toys, scratching posts and cardboard boxes at his disposal. Toys with a reward incentive (with food or grass inside) are very positive to de-stress the cat and complement their need to destroy a piece, on the other hand, you can build a game as a “fishing rod” with a stick , a rope and a rattle.
However, it is not recommended to use laser pointers to play, and these are precisely the ones that can motivate the need to bite, since the laser point is a virtual image that you will never be able to hunt down, and in the end you will feel the upward urge to sink his teeth into a prey.
In order not to encourage the cat to be attracted to the cables, it is highly recommended to have all the wiring of devices as tidy as possible, and never have many plugs hanging from the same extension cord.
If the cat finds itself with a “skein” of connections, it probably goes through its head that it would be a very good idea to play with them, as if they were woolen cables. You can use repellents on the cables, these are hormones that produce an unpleasant reaction in the cat when they are sniffed, it would be something like the clear and forceful mark of another animal that tells them “not here”.
A loose wire to incite the habit
Sometimes the habit of biting a cable can arise from the least imaginable situation. Think that when you vacuum, or dry your hair, connect the Christmas tree lights, or put an extension cord to charge an appliance in an unsuspected area, you are laying an unexpected cable in the middle of the house that contributes to your cat an unusual adventure out of the ordinary, a challenge you may not be able to resist, and so the habit can begin.
Simply, you must be careful that you do not start a game with these temporary cables, as they could be the beginning of a difficult situation to manage if it goes further. Think that there are things that you should not play with, and cables are one of them, do not allow even an “electric” fling, before any movement of the cat on the cable with the intention of biting it, it must be emphatic and prohibit it from handling it. In addition to your attitude, find another distraction for her, and reward her by agreeing to play with her.
How to put solution
Negative or even dangerous cat behaviors, once established, have a slow and complicated process of re-education. Unlike dogs, the level of attention and cooperation of cats is unpredictable and follows more specific guidelines. For a cat to stop doing something there are three possible actions: distract it with other things, show our disagreement rigidly and clearly, and reward it when it performs different actions.
A cat should never be punished or reprimanded in an aggressive way or with negative consequences, simply because its mind will not be able to understand (in any way) that what it did has something to do with the punishment. Animals, and specifically dogs and cats, react very well to positive reinforcement rewards, but they will not be able to give meaning to punishments, what’s more, they will produce the opposite effect on them than desired.
If your cat bites the cables and none of these options work well, keep in mind that there are motion sensors that you can install near the areas where they usually go, so that as soon as they get closer you can go to show your disagreement, and little by little. little the fact that you always catch him ‘red-handed’ will make him give up.