Do your cats have cubbies? You know, a basket, shelf, box, compartment, little house where they like to hang out—away from the hustle-bustle of the household activity? Does she use the little cubicles on her cat tree to curl up and sleep the afternoon away?
I’ve had cats hang out under the bed, under the covers in my bed, under the sofa, on a window sill behind the draperies, and, of course, in a closet. When Olivia was young she evidently went into a closet when I opened it to get something one evening and she ended up spending the night in there. I was so frantic the next morning when I couldn’t find her. And, no, she didn’t scratch or meow at all. I just happened to open the door and out she ran right to the litter box. I felt AWFUL! To this day she’s leery of closets.
Cats like to hide and there are times when they seem to like privacy. Our cats have enjoyed some of the “houses” we’ve created for them from delivery boxes. We might stack them and create windows and doors for the cats to go through and look out through.
There are also cat houses—even castles, you can buy for your cats. The cat we have now, Olivia, is probably too fickle to get much use out of something like that. Maybe it’s her feral background, but she isn’t always easy to find when we want to check on her or need to know where she is. Most of my cats were pretty predictable when it came to their sleeping habits—on the bed, under the blankets, or on top of the cat tree. But Olivia keeps on the move. Sometimes we find her under the bed, or under the sofa, or inside one of her tunnels, in a cubical on one of her cat trees, and she will occasionally take a nap in a random closet. Offer her a cat bed? Forget it. She has two plush beds, which I’ve placed in different areas trying to entice her to curl up and take a comfortable snooze. Nope. She creates her own bed or castle and sometimes it’s not even cushioned. She’ll spend hours sleeping on the hardwood floor when there’s a cozy bed and plush carpeting at her disposal, or on my desk amidst a smattering of papers, a calculator, stapler, pens and pencils and so forth.
My favorite sleeping place for her is on my lap. She is the best cuddle cat ever.