I have my ebook library on an external hard drive so I can cart it with me to work and use it for reference. The cord was the USB interface cable.
My ebooks are the only thing on the drive which is why I didn't see any issues elsewhere.
He made a pretty good cut through the outer shielding and into the inner copper, but it was mostly intact. I'm not sure how the memory errors come into play (maybe paging to disk with Windows?) but they haven't occurred since I replaced the cable.
He's going to kill himself someday. He likes to hang out on the back of my monitor and chew on the cables back there, but those carry enough current to throw him into the next world. I try to keep him from doing it but... sigh, I think it's impossible. Damn stubborn birds.
Oh, as for watch dogs... my dog is an Australian sheepdog. 120 pounds of muscle. And he's terrified... absolutely terrified... of my bird. As is my cat. I will never understand the animal kingdom.