What’s Up With That: Why Do Cats Love Boxes So Much?
By Bryan Gardiner
Take heart feline enthusiasts. Your cat’s continued indifference toward her
new Deluxe Scratch DJ Deck may be disappointing, but there is an object
that’s pretty much guaranteed to pique her interest. That object, as the
Internet has so thoroughly documented, is a box. Any box, really. Big boxes,
small boxes, irregularly shaped boxes—it doesn’t matter. Place one on the
ground, a chair, or a bookshelf and watch as Admiral Snuggles quickly
commandeers it.
So what are we to make of the strange gravitational pull that empty Amazon
packaging exerts on Felis sylvestris catus? Like many other really weird
things cats do, science hasn’t fully cracked this particular feline mystery
. There’s the obvious predation advantage a box affords: Cats are ambush
predators, and boxes provide great hiding places to stalk prey from (and
retreat to). But there’s clearly more going on here.
Thankfully, behavioral biologists and veterinarians have come up with a few
other interesting explanations. In fact, when you look at all the evidence
together, it could be that your cat may not just like boxes, he may need
them.
The box-and-whisker plot
Understanding the feline mind is notoriously difficult. Cats, after all,
tend not to be the easiest test subjects. Still, there’s a sizable amount
of behavioral research on cats who are, well, used for other kinds of
research (i.e., lab cats). These studies—many of which focused on
environmental enrichment—have been taking place for more than 50 years and
they make one thing abundantly clear: Your fuzzy companion derives comfort
and security from enclosed spaces.
This is likely true for a number of reasons, but for cats in these often
stressful situations, a box or some other type of separate enclosure (within
the enclosures they’re already in) can have a profound impact on both
their behavior and physiology.
Veterinarian Claudia Vinke of Utrecht University in the Netherlands is one
of the latest researchers to study stress levels in shelter cats. Working
with domestic cats in a Dutch animal shelter, Vinke provided hiding boxes
for a group of newly arrived cats while depriving another group of them
entirely. She found a significant difference in stress levels between cats
that had the boxes and those that didn’t. In effect, the cats with boxes
got used to their new surroundings faster, were far less stressed early on,
and were more interested in interacting with humans.
It makes sense when you consider that the first reaction of nearly all cats
to a stressful situation is to withdraw and hide. “Hiding is a behavioral
strategy of the species to cope with environmental changes and stressors,”
Vinke said in an email.
This is as true for cats in the wild as it is for those in your home. Only
instead of retreating to tree tops, dens, or caves, yours may find comfort
in a shoe box.
Box (anti-)social
It’s also important to note that cats really suck at conflict resolution.
To quote from The Domestic Cat: The Biology of its Behaviour, “Cats do not
appear to develop conflict resolution strategies to the extent that more
gregarious species do, so they may attempt to circumvent agonistic
encounters by avoiding others or decreasing their activity.”
So rather than work things out, cats are more inclined to simply run away
from their problems or avoid them altogether. A box, in this sense, can
often represent a safe zone, a place where sources of anxiety, hostility,
and unwanted attention simply disappear.
Of course the problem with these explanations is that they make box
attraction seem like a symptom of a mal-adjusted, stressed out cats. I don’
t know about you, but to me, Maru does not appear to be suffering from high
levels of stress in the video below.
Take heart feline enthusiasts. Your cat’s continued indifference toward her
new Deluxe Scratch DJ Deck may be disappointing, but there is an object
that’s pretty much guaranteed to pique her interest. That object, as the
Internet has so thoroughly documented, is a box. Any box, really. Big boxes,
small boxes, irregularly shaped boxes—it doesn’t matter. Place one on the
ground, a chair, or a bookshelf and watch as Admiral Snuggles quickly
commandeers it.
What's Up With That?
Each week, we'll explain the science behind a strange phenomenon that you
may be wondering about, or may be hearing about for the first time right
here. If you've seen or heard of something you'd like us to explain, send us
an email. View the entire collection.
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Why It's So Hard to Catch your Own Typos
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So what are we to make of the strange gravitational pull that empty Amazon
packaging exerts on Felis sylvestris catus? Like many other really weird
things cats do, science hasn’t fully cracked this particular feline mystery
. There’s the obvious predation advantage a box affords: Cats are ambush
predators, and boxes provide great hiding places to stalk prey from (and
retreat to). But there’s clearly more going on here.
Thankfully, behavioral biologists and veterinarians have come up with a few
other interesting explanations. In fact, when you look at all the evidence
together, it could be that your cat may not just like boxes, he may need
them.
The box-and-whisker plot
Understanding the feline mind is notoriously difficult. Cats, after all,
tend not to be the easiest test subjects. Still, there’s a sizable amount
of behavioral research on cats who are, well, used for other kinds of
research (i.e., lab cats). These studies—many of which focused on
environmental enrichment—have been taking place for more than 50 years and
they make one thing abundantly clear: Your fuzzy companion derives comfort
and security from enclosed spaces.
Cotton in a box.
Cotton in a box. Desiree Yip/Flickr | CC BY-NC-ND-2.0 (used with permission)
This is likely true for a number of reasons, but for cats in these often
stressful situations, a box or some other type of separate enclosure (within
the enclosures they’re already in) can have a profound impact on both
their behavior and physiology.
Veterinarian Claudia Vinke of Utrecht University in the Netherlands is one
of the latest researchers to study stress levels in shelter cats. Working
with domestic cats in a Dutch animal shelter, Vinke provided hiding boxes
for a group of newly arrived cats while depriving another group of them
entirely. She found a significant difference in stress levels between cats
that had the boxes and those that didn’t. In effect, the cats with boxes
got used to their new surroundings faster, were far less stressed early on,
and were more interested in interacting with humans.
It makes sense when you consider that the first reaction of nearly all cats
to a stressful situation is to withdraw and hide. “Hiding is a behavioral
strategy of the species to cope with environmental changes and stressors,”
Vinke said in an email.
This is as true for cats in the wild as it is for those in your home. Only
instead of retreating to tree tops, dens, or caves, yours may find comfort
in a shoe box.
Box (anti-)social
It’s also important to note that cats really suck at conflict resolution.
To quote from The Domestic Cat: The Biology of its Behaviour, “Cats do not
appear to develop conflict resolution strategies to the extent that more
gregarious species do, so they may attempt to circumvent agonistic
encounters by avoiding others or decreasing their activity.”
So rather than work things out, cats are more inclined to simply run away
from their problems or avoid them altogether. A box, in this sense, can
often represent a safe zone, a place where sources of anxiety, hostility,
and unwanted attention simply disappear.
Of course the problem with these explanations is that they make box
attraction seem like a symptom of a mal-adjusted, stressed out cats. I don’
t know about you, but to me, Maru does not appear to be suffering from high
levels of stress in the video below.
The ‘If it fits, I sits’ principle
Astute feline observers will note that in addition to boxes, many cats seem
to pick other odd places to relax. Some curl up in a bathroom sink. Others
prefer shoes, bowls, shopping bags, coffee mugs, empty egg cartons, and
other small, confined spaces.
Which brings us to the other reason your cat may like particularly small
boxes (and other seemingly uncomfortable places): It’s friggin’ cold out.
According to a 2006 study by the National Research Council, the
thermoneutral zone for a domestic cat is 86 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit. That’
s the range of temperatures in which cats are “comfortable” and don’t
have to generate extra heat to keep warm or expend metabolic energy on
cooling. That range also happens to be 20 degrees higher than ours, which
explains why it’s not unusual to see your neighbor’s cat sprawled out on
the hot asphalt in the middle of a summer day, soaking in the sunlight.
It also explains why many cats may enjoy curling up in tiny cardboard boxes
and other strange places. Corrugated cardboard is a great insulator and
confined spaces force the cat to ball up or form some other impossible
object, which in turn helps it to preserve body heat.
Indeed the same NRC study found that most cats’ housing areas are around 72
degrees Fahrenheit, a good 14 degrees colder than a domestic cat’s minimum
thermoneutral temperature.
So there you have it: Boxes are insulating, stress-relieving, comfort zones
—places where cats can hide, relax, sleep, and occasionally launch a sneak
attack against the huge, unpredictable apes they live with.
