NeuroTalk Support Groups - Why cats love boxes:

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This study showed that boxes to lie in or play with seemed to lower stress in cats.

I'll never forget the day when Weezie was about 3 months old and a box from Ebay arrived with a handmade crocheted bed inside. She loved the box and the bed inside became a fave too!

As I came in from the porch, she started to squeal, and was very
excited. How did she know what was inside? I thought maybe the seller sprayed catnip on it, so I emailed her. Nope...no catnip. (the squealing has remained into adulthood too--she is the only cat we have had who squeals with pleasure).

She promptly settled in, and today the bed is smashed flat and somewhat beaten up and only 1/2 of her " rear fundament" fits in it! LOL

and Maya still loves her boxes... this photo is one from the past, even a bit too small but still a fave no less. ;)

So ours also LOVE LOVE paper on the floor. Especially the plain packing paper some sellers use on Ebay. But that is fodder for another post someday.

Weezie puts her toys in the boxes we have around the house for both cats. When she was a teenaged kitten, she took the Snapple caps that I played with her with, and hid them under one of her boxes. I didn't know where they were disappearing to, and when I picked up that box to use for a seedling carrier for a friend, there were over 30 bottles caps hidden under it! I was totally flabbergasted at that! I would toss her a bottle cap (these are metal ones) and she would carry it to "her" chosen box, and stash it. Today she also hides things under papers she finds on the floor. The most recent item was a package of wooden cuticle pushers I had on the corner of the bedstand upstairs, that she hid under some magazines. I searched for that for several days in fact.
She can be really devious sometimes. LOL