Aliza’s diet
August 25th, 2008 by Ari
Once, while living in Baltimore with some friends, my sister owned a cat that liked to chew on plastic. Since ethernet cables are coated in plastic, this meant frequent network outages and they had to make sure to run the cables where the cat couldn’t get to them (like on the ceiling). As a side note, cats stomach’s apparently cannot digest plastic, so the network outages could be spent cleaning up plastic shards off the floor. I now have a similar problem. Aliza simply loves to chew on cords and cables. Although she doesn’t have any teeth yet and therefore can’t hurt anything, I don’t think this bodes well for the long term. I’m currently trying to wean her from cord chewing by not letting her chew on power cords and limiting her to only communication wires (like ethernet). Rebecca thinks I should make Aliza go “cold turkey” by not letting her chew on any cords. Whichever approach we take this much is obvious: any child who lives with me and plans on surviving to adolescence had better learn power safety. fast.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I have spools of cat-3 and cat-5 you can use. One nice thing about the cat-3 is that it’s next to indestructible, and it’s cheaper than string (true!).
August 25th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Of course, Ari, you do realize that the reason your sister’s cat liked network cables is because they were probably CAT-5 cables…
Seriously, Aliza is probably teething; how about getting a few teething toys instead?
August 26th, 2008 at 6:06 am
She has plenty of teething rings. She just like this better.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:34 am
I’d be weary of letting kids chew on (even) communication cables: Some cheaper/older cables use lead as a stabilizer in the PVC coating of the cable, which is easily rubbed onto hands and mouths.