somniloquence

For the cable chewing, there are flexible cable cover tubes available (I got mine from IKEA) that are intended to bundle multiple cables, but you can also put just one cable in. It doesn't make them chew proof but puts another layer around, so it delays damage. It's not a good solution for thin cables you want to move a lot like the USB for a tablet or an earphones cable, but decent for the power cords.

I sympathize a lot with the loss of your tablet. My rats destroyed the cable of mine, and none of the current affordable wacoms work with Linux yet because they totally changed their drivers and it takes time for the volunteers to reengineer things, since of course wacom doesn't offer any Linux support themselves.