Cats are weird.
They are also cute and snuggly and beautiful and evil and they destroy your curtains. Next to the definition of "Chaotic Neutral" in Dungeons and Dragons, there should be a picture of a cat. They do what they want, when they want, and damned if we humans can ever really figure out why.
Really, the phrase "if I fits, I sits," is a bit misleading, because if the box is small, most cats will make themselves fit.
It's so common a thing that there are multiple subreddits devoted to sharing pictures of cats inside containers. For this article, I've chosen pics from r/TheCatTrapIsWorking, mostly because the larger subreddit on the topic has a name that's NSFW.
Which makes sense; cats are terrible test subjects.
A common hypothesis has to do with cats' natural hunting instincts.
They also favor enclosed spaces to call home, as protection against other predators. Basically, if they are in an enclosed space, nothing can sneak up on them.
Of course, a tissue box isn't quite the same as a cliff side cave, but it could still cause those same evolutionary processes to work.
So researchers from the University of Utrecht decided to see how having a box to hide in affected a cat's stress levels.
Turns out that it makes a pretty notable difference.
The cats' stress levels were calculated according to the Kessler and Turner Cat-Stress-Score (CSS). Then, half the cats had small hiding boxes put into their enclosure with them, while the other half were left without any additional hiding places.
Over 14 days, the researchers checked the cats' CSS scores.
However, in the first three days, the cats with hiding boxes showed much healthier stress levels than those without. Basically, having a place to hide allowed them to recover faster from the initial stress of coming to the shelter.
"In summary, the hiding box appears to be an important enrichment for the cat to cope effectively with stressors in a new shelter environment the first weeks after arrival," the study says.
So when you find your feline squeezed into a box or drawer, remember that regardless of how awkward it looks, they do find comfort in it.
