Automotive Animal Kingdom

So, a few weeks ago, M. was getting ready to go to work, hopped in his car and turned the key to find....nothing. His car wasn't turning over at all. What in the world? It's a perfectly good car, for Pete's sake! Was the dome light on? Nope. How about the gas tank empty? Nope. Not that either. We discovered the hard way that, like anything else about living here, automotive issues are their own animal...or have their own animal, which is actually more accurately the case around here. What do I mean? Weeeeell, upon popping open the hood of the car, M. discovered that the spark plug cables had been neatly severed...and whoever had done it left a couple of rows of little teeth marks behind! Not having any idea what could have caused this, he ran back in the house and called his office. Luckily, some of the people in the motor pool were there, and when he described what had happened they all said, "Oh, yeeeeep. That's a marder!" A what? That's right folks: there is a weasel, which looks a bit like a ferret, with sharp little teeth and an apetite for spark plug cables. And luckily for M. and I, they prefer to snack on cables that are located under the hoods of BMWs. Greeeaat! So when I was in Wurzburg to pick up the new-to-me car, I said to the seller's wife, who is German, "Hey, what's the deal with the marders?" Her eyes got big and she said, "Oh, ja, der marders!" and quickly produced a newspaper article with a photo of one of the little rascals. So what does one do to prevent these characters from snacking on their automotive cables? Apparently, the most effective thing you can do to avoid the rath of der marder is to scotch tape clumps of fur from the smelliest dog you can find to the underside of the hood of the car. Or spray cat urine on the engine, but as M. said, where are we going to find a cat who'll agree to cooperate with that request? But still, as I'm stalking my neighbor's dog (who looks a little bit like Chewbacca!) I keep thinking there's got to be any easier way! (And hopefully, one that's less likely to make me part of an inernational incident!) So, if you have a smelly dog that's willing to part with some fur, I've found your market!