Why Cats Try to Sneak Into Small Boxes: You’ll Be Surprised!

It’s a well-known fact: any box in the cat owner’s house is instantly filled with a cat that behaves like a liquid. Woolen pets manage to “leak” even in the smallest containers: it suddenly turns out that your Maine Coon is not as big as it looks and fits in a toaster box. But why do felines have such a passion for self-packing?

Do you know what temperature should be in the apartment for a person to be comfortable? 18–22°C is considered ideal, but someone may disagree and say that 23–24°C is much better. It may seem that cats need different, cooler “weather” in the house – after all, with rare exceptions, they are all covered in wool. But studies have shown that the optimal temperature for cats is actually… 30-35°C! It is in such conditions that cats do not need to generate additional heat to warm the body.

In other words, cats are just plain cold to us. That’s why they like to hide in boxes, because cardboard is an excellent heat insulator. The smaller the box, the better, as the cat will curl up in it into a compact ball – an ideal position for keeping warm. And the smell of wood gives the paper an additional attraction – this aroma reminds animals of wild nature.

There’s another reason cats love boxes. It turns out that cardboard boxes have a positive effect on the mental state of animals. Ethologist Claudia Vincke from the University of Utrecht found that cats in a shelter who are given the opportunity to hide in boxes get used to new conditions more quickly and are less nervous.

People go to a psychotherapist for stress relief, cats go to a box. Claudia Vincke explains that this is a behavioral characteristic of the species. Cats don’t have conflict resolution strategies like dogs or rats, so they prefer to avoid unnecessary encounters by reducing their activity.

There is another version of why boxes have such a therapeutic effect on cats. Some experts remind us: very often the first weeks of a kitten’s life are spent in cardboard “walls”. In an adult animal, many pleasant things are associated with boxes – warmth, comfort, care of a mother cat.

Anyway, cats love cardboard shelters. Let’s not deny them this smallness: according to scientists, boxes only benefit animals.