rodents suck

[ratcreature]

My stupid rats chewed on the cable on my wacom tablet, and it now won't work anymore. Unfortunately the cable is fixed to the tablet, so I can't just use a new USB cable, also with the many finicky small cables making up the cable I can't just fix it myself like I could with a power cord. I tried reconnecting the strands, but didn't manage to get it working again. :(

Why can't they make standard cable insulation bitter with some added chemical rather than letting it remain sweet as it is now? Surely it's not just pet rodents who love the taste of cable better than many actual food stuffs, that has to be a problem in buildings and such at least sometimes.

Argh. I guess my yuletart entry will have to be completely traditional media, because there's no way I can afford a new tablet right now, not even a cheap one like mine was, not least because of the same destructive rodents' vet bills. Gah, I haven't inked or colored on paper in ages.

In slightly better news, when the vet removed the remaining stitches from Krümel's eye on Monday he said it healed quite well. There's still a hematoma in his eye that'll have to heal, and he still has to take an antibiotic daily and eyedrops several times a day, but the chances are better now that he will be able to keep his eye. I have to come for another check in a week, or rather it ought to have been a week from Monday, but that's in the middle of Christmas, so I'm going to take him on the first day after, i.e. the 27th. Meanwhile Krümel seems mostly okay, though for some reason he keeps that eye squinted almost closed most of the time, but from what I can see of it, it doesn't look worse or infected, so I figure it's just because it's still healing or something, and hope for the best.

Comments

[maxinemayer.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad Krumel's eye seems to be healing. As far as animals chewing wiring, I've had that problem, too. Cats and dogs seem to do that. Nothing you can do to stop them!

Also, a dog I had once chewed up what amounted to many many yards of a knitted carpet we had. I think that, once she started, she couldn't stop, couldn't get the yarn to break off, so she just kept chewing. Ended up paying several hundred dollars for an operation to remove said yarn from her tummy. Needless to say, we got rid of that piece of carpet and have been careful ever since about what kinds of materials we leave around the house! Love, mxm

[ratcreature]

Yikes. Thankfully mine have never hurt themselves. Mostly I'm resigned to their chewing and I remove and/or rodent-proof what I can, but there's only so much I can do when I want to use the room I share with them as well. They are only allowed to run free in my bedroom where their cage is, so that limits the problems, and I put up rodent chewing stuff everywhere, and then put most of my educational effort into teaching them that the electrical wiring is off-limits (much of mine isn't beneath plaster) so that they don't electrocute themselves. I accepted some chewing on the wood furniture, because I don't think they'd understand why the wood inside their cage and the climbing branches and all the wood toys outside are okay to chew on, but the shelves and such are not, at least not without a lot of effort and vigilance on my part, and that's just not worth it for a couple of plain IKEA shelves.

They learned some rules, like that I'm really displeased when they pull up the carpeting on the edges of the room to get to the foam underneath, and they don't do that anymore, and I think they know that all cables are off limits, but that the plastic softener in the insulation makes them taste sweet turns all cables into very tempting targets. I never let them outside without supervision and they get yelled at when I see them chewing on cable, but these USB cables are thin enough that they do serious damage with just a couple of bites. My life, and that of many other pet owners, would be much easier if the industry just made these taste horrible and bitter, and it's not like it would hurt their functionality any.

[maxinemayer.livejournal.com]

I see your point but think it's unlikely that the manufacturers would put R&D into finding out what to use that is safe, nor would they want to pay for chemicals, etc., to add to the cost of making the cables. Manufacturers are just "that way" about lessening profits.... Love, mxm

[ratcreature]

True, but they already have these kinds of additives for houshold cleaners and such to give an extra measure of child safety (at least here almost all cleaning products have a label that they are made bitter by something), though it would probably ahve ot be modified a bit for adding to cables, but then they have no trouble coloring them for example. And I agree that it's probably not worth it just for pet owners, but I figure that there has to be rodent damage with all kinds of cables from vermin as well, that has to cause inconvenient costs with extra repairs and such, especially in places where the cables are not easy to access for humans.

It would just be such a neat solution. Sigh.

[maxinemayer.livejournal.com]

Sighing in return.... Love ya, Max