The old Volkswagen Beetle pulls up after a long journey. The ambient temperature is slightly chilly. A stray cat is huddled nearby watching as the driver gets out and walks to their apartment across the road. The cat seizes her opportunity to both feel safer and be warmer. The engine vent allows the hot air surrounding the engine to gentle emerge from the engine compartment and the rear light fitment which illuminates the car's registration number provides a neat if slightly cramped platform for the cat to hop onto.
And here is the finished result: a warmer and safer cat until the drive returns to use their car again.
You must know this by now. The basic tenet of cat caregiving is to provide security for your cat and after that comes warmth, food and high places! Those high places are so important because the cat feels safer there and embedded in their DNA is this desire; this instinctive desire inherited from their wild cat ancestor, to climb. To climb a tree and if there is no tree to climb a manufactured cat tree in the safety of their family's home.
For a stray cat this luxury is missing. But the substitute will be a light fitment on a Volkswagen beetle next to an engine air vent to keep her warm.
I was going to say that all drivers should check inside the engine compartment of the car during the winter to make sure that there are no kittens or adult cats there but I have to be realistic and practical and say that it is impractical to do that every time. However, many stray cats are injured after they sought warmth within the engine compartment of a vehicle that's just parked up and therefore the area around the engine is warm.
RELATED: Cat uninjured and safe after 2 hours 30 minutes of motorway driving in engine compartment.
On the topic of cars, you will find the odd neighbour complaining about their neighbour's cat who likes to jump on top of the hood (bonnet in the UK) of their car. They might claim that the cat scratches the paintwork. I would argue that that is very rare because cats are good at jumping onto objects precisely. They don't need to use their claws. And the reason, once again, why a cat is jumping up onto the hood of a vehicle is because it is warm there and it is a high place! The same rules apply.
Rather than complaining about a cat doing this people should ask more profound questions about why there is a stray cat on the streets who needs to do this. Why the neighbour's cat is stuck outside wanting to do this. Anyway, it's pretty rare for a cat to jump up onto a car hood although it does happen.
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