Cats Love Sleeping On Stuff We Use - Here's Why!

Just like every other normal person, these three questions must have crossed your mind: First, how did the whole nine lives concept come to be? Second, why do cats hate water so much? Third and the most importantly, why do cats like to sleep on the stuff we use?

The third question has got every cat and non-cat owner left wondering why they just don’t sleep in the lovely bed you’ve got especially for them. This has even inspired a page on twitter named Cats On Laptops, giving feline lovers a daily dose of cats doing various activities on laptop. If you dig in deeper you will even find pictures of cats from sitting in a fish bowl to sleeping in a cardboard box; they can make themselves comfortable in the most uncomfortable places.

Cats come sneakily and sit on the stuff you are using, whether it is your laptop or a book which is almost them being like “Oh, were you using that? Well, not anymore!”

The major reason why cats love to come and sit on our things while we are using it is because those objects smell like us. When an object has our scent cats like to go near it because it makes them feel happy and safe. You might have never thought of this, but like all other animals, cats also have a strong sense of smell. Compared to us humans, a cat’s sense of smell is 40 times stronger and their nose is also considered as one of their most important sensory organs.

As per a few sources, a cat’s nasal cavity consists of 200 million scent receptors – quite surprising, right? What’s even more astonishing is some dog breeds don’t have that many scent receptors. Nonetheless, few say that dogs have 300 million receptors as compared to a normal cat’s 80 million receptors (If you were wondering, we humans have 5 million receptors). Though we are not sure which numbers are for real, one thing that we can be certain of is that your cat is more familiar with your scent and when it smells it they will come close and cuddle with it.

You might have also noticed that your cat wants to sit only on the book you were reading and not any other – that is totally how a cat behaves! It is not that your cat shares some kind of interest in the book; in fact, it just wants the one which was in your hands.

Another explanation for this reason can be that, cats like to maintain control over their territory and mark their spot. Cats mark their territory by urinating on objects and also claim it by rubbing their body against it. By doing just that what they are actually doing is transferring their pheromones onto that object, which gives it a scent indicating that it’s their property. This is also how they establish their ownership.

This is the way cats have been marking their territories over ages by setting a boundary for both themselves and other cats. A cat knows it’s safe when it smells its own scent on your book or laptop. But if the scent starts fading away, they may go ahead and do the whole process all over again to have a feeling of safeness to itself.

Have you ever got an impression that your cat comes between you and your laptop screen whether you are finishing some work or playing a game? Well, it is not coincidence. Your cat knows that you are ignoring them and they try to seek your attention by doing that. This can also be an explanation for why your cat loves to sleep on the stuff you use.

One more explanation might be their body temperature. As a cat’s body temperature is around 102˚ Fahrenheit, they like finding warmer places to maintain their body temperature. This might perhaps be the reason why your cat likes to sit on that designer radiator you purchased a year or two back with the intention of jazzing up your lounge. If you’ve ever got worried that your cat might get hurt by coming in contact with it…don’t. Your cat knows its way around things and can look after its own safety. If this doesn’t give you a sound sleep at night, simply put a wooden shelf on top of your radiator with furnishings on them. This will surely prevent a direct contact between your cat and radiator.

We hope that this article has finally helped you solve the mystery of why your cat loves to sleep on the stuff you use.