There are many reasons why cats chew on things they shouldn’t, from wanting to soothe their gums during teething to exercising their natural instinct to slice and dice with their sharp back teeth.
Is Chewing Normal for Cats?
Chewing is a common behavior in cats, but that doesn’t mean it’s something that can or should be ignored.
“Whether chewing is normal is all relative to the cat, his health, and his level of activity,”， “It becomes excessive when it interferes with other activities or is self-injurious.”
Risks of Destructive Chewing in Cats
A cat’s teeth are much sharper than a dog’s (or ours)—“like a scalpel compared to a butter knife,” Jones says. For this reason, cat teeth are built for almost any level of chewing and rarely get harmed via this behavior.
Other harmful items cats may chew on include toxic plants, small toys or other objects, ribbons, tinsel, and yarn. In many of these cases, chewing can be dangerous because of the risk of consuming something that can get stuck in your cat’s digestive system. “Oftentimes when a cat eats something indigestible that is comparatively large or string-like, the only way to deal with the situation is for a veterinarian to go in surgically, remove the object, and try to repair any damage that it has done,” Coates adds.
Stopping Unwanted Chewing Behaviors
Sometimes, the simplest idea is the best. If you want to prevent your cat from chewing on your personal items, put them out of reach.
You can also use furniture and carpets to block off access to wires and certain corners of your house where you may keep something that’s tempting to your cat’s chewing instinct, If that’s not possible, she suggests using lemon, cayenne, rosemary, or another scent that cats find unappealing to deter them.
Clicker training is a great way to teach your cat that it pays to walk away from something rather than chew it. That said, it can be a time-consuming process because you may need to train for multiple objects.
An easier way to modify chewing behavior is to simply provide your cat with ample exercise and enrichment, including appropriate objects to chew on.
