Why #cats love boxes

When it comes to cats, there is surely only one question on everybody’s mind. “Why do they like boxes so much?” Luckily science now has an answer, so we can all rest easy knowing our top brains have been put to the best possible use.


According to Wired, “Veterinarian Claudia Vinke of Utrecht University in the Netherlands is one of the latest researchers to study stress levels in shelter cats”. Vinke found that cats provided with a box had significantly lower stress levels and adapted far quicker to a new environment than cats denied the sweet embrace of a cardboard sanctuary.

Wired, quoting from The Domestic Cat: The Biology of its Behaviour, says “Cats do not appear to develop conflict resolution strategies to the extent that more gregarious species do”. In other words, cats are big scaredy-cats whose first reaction in the face of any perceived discomfort is to run, and probably hide under the desk, staring back accusingly.

The box then, functions as a kind of den, a cat-cave where felines can escape the unbearable, existential angst of having nothing else to do except lie around and contemplate their fall from Ancient God, to object of internet ridicule.

“Within this mighty fortress, I alone am the master!”  
“Isn’t that the box the new toaster came in?” “...”

Wired suggests that cats also use boxes to keep warm, the comfort-zone temperature for a cat being quite a bit higher than for us humans.

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