Cat Hides in Package and Gets Mailed 750 Miles Over 4 days: Later Reunited with Family

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Baloo is a cat in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia who had a recent adventure of sorts. In short, what happened was that his owner Jacqueline Lake was sending a shipment of tire rims to the province of Alberta, which is out in the Canadian Prairies. She noticed that the shipment was heavier than usual, but she thought that it wasn’t anything important. As it turned out, Baloo had sneaked into the shipment without Jacqueline’s knowledge, which is how he winded up being sent out in the shipment of tire rims.

Luckily, nothing too traumatic happened to Baloo. What happened is that an employee at a sorting facility in Montreal found Baloo, which resulted in the shipping company Puralator contacting Jacqueline about the whole incident. Once things were cleared up, volunteers from the group called Freedom Drivers sent Baloo back to Jacqueline free of charge, thus ensuring that cat and cat owner would be reunited in time for the holidays. On the whole, it is a rather amusing story, not least because it has a happy ending.

Why Do Cats Crawl Into Concealed Spaces Anyways?

With that said, some people might wonder what is it that prompts cats to crawl into concealed spaces. This particular case is a more striking example of such incidences, but they happen on a regular basis, so much so that they can be considered a normal part of cat behavior.

As it turns out, there are very good reasons for why cats like crawling into concealed spaces. Simply put, cats are both predator and prey animals. Their ancestors would hunt a wide range of animals. However, a wide range of animals would also hunt their ancestors. Due to this, cats have instincts that both help them hunt other animals and instincts that help them avoid being hunted down by other animals. Nowadays, cats don’t need those instincts to the same extent as their ancestors, but the thing about something as ingrained as instincts is that they won’t just disappear within a mere handful of generations when viewed from the grand perspective of things.

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Concealed spaces provide an excellent solution for both animals that want to hunt other animals and animals that want to avoid being hunted by other animals. After all, if a cat can’t be seen, that makes it much easier for it to catch its prey by surprise, thus providing it with a much better chance of success than otherwise possible. Likewise, if a predator can’t see the cat, that makes it one less sense that can be used to pick out the cat, thus providing it with a much better chance of survival even if it lets down its guard.

As a result, cats have a natural desire to crawl into concealed spaces because such surroundings provide them with peace of mind. It isn’t a coincidence that they like places that are tight-fitting, seeing as how those are the places where they can be sure that there are very limited ways that potential predators can come at them. With that said, there are also other considerations as well as other reasons that cats choose when it comes to concealed spaces. First, they prefer concealed spaces where they can look out, meaning that they retain the use of their sight while other animals do not in relation to them. Second, concealed spaces are also useful for them when it comes to regulating their body temperature, which is not the same as that of humans. Due to this, even when cat owners feel perfectly comfortable, the same might not be true for cats, thus contributing to their fondness for concealed spaces.

Final Thoughts

On the whole, it is good that Baloo managed to make it out of his experience alright. It wasn’t a particularly likely outcome, but considering the fondness of cats for concealed spaces, it isn’t exactly a wholly unprecedented case either. For cat owners as well as other people, it is a good reminder that we should follow up when we notice something strange instead of just assuming that everything is alright because by doing so, we might be able to prevent undesirable outcomes from passing to pass. There is such a thing as too much caution, but a reasonable measure of caution can do a great deal to help us in our daily lives.

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