Picture proves that cats like warmth and height

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.

Keeping your home warm just for your cat might waste hundreds of dollars or pounds annually

It has been calculated in the UK that if you keep your home warm just for your pet cat you could be wasting £240 per year. The same applies to a dog. The point is this: if you keep the heating on in your home while you are at work to keep your cat warm it is going to cost you a lot of money over a year which is something to be factored in at this time of a cost of living crisis and rising inflation in many countries.

Don't heat your house while you are out to keep your cat warm. Image: Pixabay.

Dr. David Glew, an expert in energy efficiency and policy at Leeds Beckett University said that "It is not a great idea to heat your whole house for a dog [or cat] while you are out as it could cost you hundreds of pounds a year. To put it into perspective, putting in loft insulation will only save you around £40 a year, a new boiler will save you £50 a year, and cavity wall insulation will save £80 a year for an average house."

I think you can safely translate those numbers to dollars in the USA although I suspect it would be considerably less as the cost of living is quite low in America compared to the UK. Nonetheless, every penny helps.

Interestingly, in the UK, a survey published in 2015 conducted by Energy Saving Trust found that 53% of dog owners and 47% of cat owners worried that their pet would feel cold while they were out. However, Justin Shotton, president of the British Veterinary Association said heating "shouldn't generally be necessary". The reason is that when animals are young and healthy and have the usual fur coat they are well able to cope with any slight chill that exists inside a home during cold days.

In addition, the survey found that 31% of people left the light on for the cat or dog while they were out. And 28% said they left the radio one and 23% kept the TV on.

My initial thoughts about this is that if you want to keep an area of your home a little bit warmer in winter while you are away, you can buy a trickle feed electric bar which plugs into the mains. These are very safe and designed to keep the temperature from dropping in a fixed are.

Trickle heater on Amazon.

It just takes the edge the chill. You can also buy one of those igloo cat beds which are completely covered and insulated. This will allow the body heat of your cat to warm up their own environment. Another possibility is to buy an electric blanket for cats and dogs which will allow them to warm up when resting. I believe that these are all available at modest prices in Amazon.

I certainly would agree with this expert that it is unnecessary and a waste of precious funds to keep a home warm just for a cat or dog. There are other ways of achieving the goal, three of which I have mentioned.