Why do cats scare the living daylights out of you by hiding???

[moriah]

He's been found, so I'm now in the "annoyed" vs "scared to death" portion of the reaction, but ...

So, during all this craziness two extra people are in our house. They didn't really have a home to shelter in place in, and they're definitely kicking ass on doing the deep-clean on our house that is our project for while we're all stuck here.

My cat is a little skittish anyway, and doesn't really like men. And yes, yesterday we tackled the living room, but all his usual favored places to sleep were still there (backs of couches, piles of clothes, my bed, etc).

This morning, he was nowhere to be found, and I swear I searched all the possible hiding places. I wouldn't have coaxed him out if I'd located him, simply been happy he was actually inside vs having escaped outside (with more people going in and out, he could get out easily, plus the room they're staying in doesn't have great AC so they're trying to keep him out of it, and have a window open in it.)

I tried to just wait and be patient, and let the house chill back down again... but after a few more hours, still no cat, still no eating of the tuna we'd put out to lure him out, etc. I walked outside, looked to see if there were cat prints in the pollen layer of the car parked in front of the potential exit window, and finally yelled across the street to a neighbor to ask if they'd seen him. They hadn't.

And as SOON as I come back inside, he emerges from the void. I swear the place from which he emerged had been searched not 10 minutes before, and no cat was in it. It was like he reappaeared from another dimension.

And then goes for the tuna.

Silly cat.

But why do they do this cross-dimensional shifting, and what can I do to make him realize it's okay to be in this one? Aside from embarrassing myself to my neighbors?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. They do have the ability to slip into other dimensions.

And then you shake a treat packet and they materialize at your feet, with a look like, "What??"

[mr_lebowski]

2. I've discovered over the years that the best place to look is NEW hiding places that were created

By shifting/movement of items in the house. My cat seems to like to find new hiding spots as soon as they're available. Sometimes you don't really realize you made a new spot. But they do. So you end up looking reflexively in the spots you know they like to hide and when they're not in the handful of those you start to freak out. At that point try to think of anything that got moved or put down recently that might've created a new place to hide.

[cayugafalls]

3. I named one of my cats Pixel, after a cat in my favorite Sci Fi book.

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein.

From Wikipedia;

The title of the book refers to a cat by the name of Pixel, who has an inexplicable tendency to be wherever the narrator happens to be (see Schrödinger's cat). In one scene Pixel does, in fact, walk through a wall, and it is explained that Pixel is too young to know that such behavior is impossible.

My Pixel was always surprising me and being places seemingly out of thin air, much like the cat in the book, although I never saw my Pixel walk through an actual wall...

[First Speaker]

9. Love that book! Heinlein was always good with cats...

...try *The Door Into Summer*. You'll fall in love with Pete...

[procon]

4. I can relate to that.

It happens to me quite often. I think my two little terrors plot to see who can make the dotty old gal have a stroke. I thought I knew all their hidey holes, and most of the time they nap in their giant, tricked out cat condo where I can see them.

When they decide to catnap elsewhere, it's like they just disappear. It might as well be in a different dimension. There was only time I actually found their secret cave. They either found a hole, or ripped one, in the covering under the box springs in the guest room. That bed is long gone and now I keep the rooms I don't use, closed. Still, they manage to vanish for hours at a time.

[catrose]

5. So many times this has happened!

In two cases I had signs posted in the neighborhood, once I had to cancel a vet appt because I couldn't find him. Always they walked out later, usually while I was crying.

When I moving across country with my four cats, one night I went to sleep while seeing my cat paw at the mirror. The next morning he was gone. I searched, the manager searched, the cleaning staff searched. After they dismantled the bed, there he was. Now I know better, and block the entrance to under the bed. (I'd thought it was solid, like consumer beds.)

[JustGene]

6. Because it's Fun!

[3catwoman3]

7. All 3 of our cats, who are indoor cats, have a TILE...

...device on their collars, so I can “beep” them when I can’t find them. Great peace of mind.

Many years ago, one of our cats got out of the house without us knowing it and was hit by a car and killed. We never figured out how she got out. It was devastating. The moment I can’t find someone, my mind immediately goes there, and it’s instant nausea until I hear the TILE chirping.

Our current female loves to hide, and she’s very good at it. One of the 2 old couches in our living room has loose batting underneath. One time she decided to crawl in there and take a nap. I never would have thought to look there, and found her because of the TILE.

[Blue Owl]

8. Jes' cats bein' cats!

Little stinkers...