How Long Will a Cat Hide if Scared? (4 Real-Life Examples!)
How long will a cat hide if he’s scared? Unfortunately, there’s no real straightforward answer to that question.
Although the popular advice is that cats will hide for two to five hours, in reality, it depends on the individual cat’s personality and what is scaring him.
Why do cats hide?
Cats like routine and generally don’t do well with change. So if something unexpected or scary happens, they may get scared and hide away till they feel safe.
It’s a completely natural behavior – both a survival strategy and a way to cope with stressful situations.
Cats hide for many reasons, including:
- Keeping them safe from predators
- Stalking prey
- Pain, illness, or injury
- Giving birth
- Loud noises (e.g. vacuum cleaner, drilling)
- Visitors to the home
- New pet in the home
- Being bullied by another cat in the home
- New baby in the home
- Tradespersons in the home
- Moving furniture
- Moving to a new house
- Just come back from the vet
- Newly adopted into a new home
- New situations in general
Hiding reduces stress in cats
A study of 43 shelter cats found that cats who were provided with a box to hide in showed a “significant reduction in stress” compared to cats who were provided with a regular, open-type cat bed.
The cats with the hiding boxes were also “more likely to approach and displayed relaxed behaviours much more frequently,” said researchers Kry and Casey (2007).
This gives us an idea of just how important hiding behavior is for cats.
Why is my new cat hiding from me?
When you adopt a new cat, he may hide in his new home until he feels safe with his new people.
This is completely normal and it’s best to just provide a safe place for your kitty to nest and leave him to regroup.
This may be a cozy spot in your laundry room or bathroom with food, water, a litter box, toys, hiding places (e.g. cardboard boxes), vertical space (i.e. somewhere high up he can retreat to if he wants to), and a soft bed.
You can always check in on your kitty periodically to see how he’s doing and let him approach you if he wants to. If not, just wait and let him set the timeline for when and how much he wants to interact with you.
This will help build his confidence and learn that he can trust you.
Once your new cat feels safe in his new environment, gets to know his new family, and gets used to the sounds and scents of the home, he’ll most likely feel less inclined to hide away.
Where do scared cats like to hide?
In the home, cats may hide under beds, in cupboards, on shelves, behind things, in any other high places or small spaces, or even under something like a blanket or duvet.
They often like warm spots such as on/in/behind TVs, refrigerators, water heaters, washing machines, dryers, and laptops. Places like this are not always safe so it’s important to restrict access to anywhere they might be at risk.
Outdoors, cats can be quite inventive in their hiding spots and may hide just about anywhere – under decks or patios, up trees, in pipes, in the neighbor’s shed or garage, in car engines, on car tires, under bushes… Pretty much anything and anywhere goes.
How can you tell if a cat is terrified?
Sometimes people think cats are impossible to read, but there are actually several ways to tell if your feline friend is feeling fearful.
One of the most common signs of fear in cats is running away; if your normally cuddly kitty is suddenly trying to hide under the furniture or on a high shelf, it’s a good indication he’s scared.
Other signs of a scared cat can be seen in his body language, including crouching low to the ground, cringing or cowering, arching his back, and puffing up his tail.
He may also have wide eyes with big pupils, and his ears may be flattened close to his head. You may hear him growling, hissing, or spitting. He may even swat, scratch, or bite.
Some cats will urinate or defecate outside the litter box when they’re scared or do not eat or drink. Some cats may only eat, drink, pee, poop, or play when there are no humans around.
These are just a few examples of how a scared cat might behave.
If you notice any changes in your cat’s behavior, it’s important to take him to the vet to rule out any underlying medical conditions.
And if everything checks out, then you’ll know it’s time to help your kitty feel more comfortable in his home environment.
How long will a cat be scared?
This will depend on the cat’s personality (is he normally confident and curious or is he more quiet and shy?) as well as what scared him in the first place.
“There’s no telling how long your cat will need to feel safe, secure and ready for interaction after a stressful event,” says PetMD.
“Whether it was a loud noise, an overfriendly human or a territorial feline that caused him to become frightened, be patient and give him some time to come around.”
Should you force a scared cat out of hiding?
It’s best not to force a scared cat out of hiding unless he’s ill or injured and you have to urgently get him to the vet.
Otherwise, just provide a safe, comfortable place for him to hide in and give him some space.
Forcing a cat out of his hiding spot can potentially make him even more scared and lead to aggression or injury. So it’s important to be patient, set up the environment so the cat knows he’s safe, and give him time to trust you.
If he feels in control of his environment, he’ll be far less stressed and will be able to stay more relaxed.
Once your hiding cat starts coming out on his own and showing interest in you, slowly build up a relationship with him through positive reinforcement (praise and treats).
How do I get my scared cat out of hiding?
Leave food, toys, and a litter box out so he knows where they are. He may come out when you’re not around.
You can try to play with him by pulling some string or waving a wand toy to see if he shows any interest.
Even if he follows the toy with his eyes it’s better than nothing and gives you a starting point. It also gives him a small outlet for his natural predatory behavior.
You can also try putting some catnip in his food or toys to encourage him to play.
“Being in a PLAYful state may help prevent the animal from going into FEAR,” explains Dr. Karolina Westlund.
This may also encourage him to explore his environment, activating the SEEKING system in his brain.
“Animals love having the SEEKING system activated,” says Dr. Karolina Westlund. “It’s believed that SEEKING will to some extent counteract or offset the negative feelings of hunger or FEAR*.”
Most importantly, be patient and give your cat time to adjust. He will come out when he’s ready.
Is it normal for a cat to hide all day?
As I’ve already mentioned, if you’ve just adopted a new kitty, he may hide away until he feels safe.
If your resident cat starts hiding, try to figure out why. There may be sudden loud noises or other changes in his environment that are scary.
Perhaps your cat is normally outgoing but becomes withdrawn and hides when visitors come over.
Or maybe he has started urinating outside the litter box due to stress.
If you have a new pet or baby in the home, he’ll need time to adjust and get used to the new family member. Careful, gradual introductions are essential.
One way to help him feel more secure is by providing plenty of hiding places, such as cardboard boxes or blankets draped over furniture.
You might also want to try Feliway, a product that releases calming pheromones into the air and may help reduce your cat’s stress levels.
Another good idea is to have various types of scratch posts (horizontal/diagonal/vertical made of cardboard/sisal/carpet) available, as every cat has individual preferences.
Ditto litter boxes and the type of cat litter. I have noticed that our cats prefer a larger litter tray than those that are commonly sold in pet stores. A cat’s preferences for different types of cat litter also vary.
“Cats have a fundamental requirement for a safe core zone within their environment to eat, sleep, and play,” say Heath and Wilson. “Within this core zone, provision of access to 3-dimensional (3D) space can help to provide for natural feline coping strategies of elevation and hiding.”
By providing a variety of resources, cats gain access to their individual preferences as they choose. In multi-cat households, this is especially important.
How long does it take a shy cat to trust you?
Again, every cat is different. There’s no set timeline for trust to develop.
Be patient and provide a secure, predictable environment for your cat to feel safe in. Take small steps in building up the relationship by offering treats, playing with him, and giving him plenty of space and hiding places when he needs them.
In time, he will learn to trust you and come out of hiding to interact with his new family.
Some cats may never be as friendly or affectionate as others, however. This depends largely on how much handling they had as a kitten, particularly during their socialization period (3-7 weeks of age).
The more people that handled them at that stage, the more sociable they’ll be to humans as adult cats and “more inclined to initiate social interaction with them.” (International Cat Care, 2018).
Where is my scared cat hiding?
If your cat is scared and hiding somewhere outdoors it’s a whole different story.
If you’ve ever had a cat go missing, you know the worry and devastation that comes with it. Cats can hide for days, weeks, or even months, making them very difficult to find.
And cats aren’t always great at responding to traditional search methods like calling their name or looking for them in familiar places.
Luckily, there are some things you can do to increase the chances of finding your missing cat. The first step is understanding why cats go missing or get lost in the first place.
According to the Missing Animal Response Network, there are three main reasons cats go missing:
- They’re displaced indoor-only cats who’ve escaped outdoors
- They’re displaced indoor-outdoor cats
- They’re lost indoor-outdoor cats
Each type of cat is likely to behave differently and you will need to adapt your search strategy accordingly.
Displaced indoor-only cats
An indoor cat who somehow manages to get outside may get displaced as the area will be unfamiliar to him. In such cases, he will usually be scared and likely hide close to home.
In most cases, cats that are scared or injured will seek areas of concealment – under a deck or in heavy brush, for example – in order to stay safe.
If you think your cat may have become displaced, your best bet is to start searching close to home.
He may possibly respond or come out if he recognizes your voice, but he may not, for fear of revealing his location to a predator.
So don’t take a lack of response to mean he’s not nearby. He may not come out even if you leave food out for him.
In my experience, a thorough physical search is the best way to find a misplaced cat who is hiding silently close to home.
Adopted rescue cats may be particularly prone to displacement, as they may not yet feel comfortable in their new home.
If you have an adopted rescue cat, it’s a good idea to keep him indoors until he’s had a chance to settle in fully. The same applies any time you move house.
Displaced indoor-outdoor cats
Sometimes a cat may be chased out of his territory by another animal (a predator or even the neighbor’s dog) or panicked by a loud noise (e.g. fireworks) and end up in unfamiliar territory.
Displacement can also happen when an indoor-outdoor cat is being transported to another location (e.g. the vet’s office) and accidentally escapes. As a result, these cats can find themselves in a strange place with no idea how to get home.
When a cat is displaced from his known territory, it can be a very scary experience for him. He may not know where he is or how to get back home even if he’s still relatively close by.
If you have an outdoor-access cat, it is important to be aware of the potential for displacement and take steps to prevent it from happening.
For example, make sure your kitty is microchipped, and always keep a collar with your contact information on it.
If your cat does become displaced, the sooner you can find him, the better. He will likely be scared and confused and may wander even further away.
Lost indoor-outdoor cats
Cats tend to be creatures of habit. They like daily routine and predictability. They are also highly territorial animals and don’t usually just run away from home unless there’s a good reason.
So when an indoor-outdoor cat disappears, it’s a pretty good indication that something has happened to interrupt his behavior of coming home.
For example, the cat may have gotten lost while out exploring and will keep moving to try to find his way home.
Maybe you’ve just moved to a new area and let your cat go outside for the first time, but he became disoriented and wasn’t sure where he needed to get back to.
I’ve had the misfortune to lose a few cats over the years (more detail on that coming up later) and have found that lost cat posters and flyers and social media posts, although they can be helpful and people are often very kind, will not usually find your cat on their own.
Say your has crawled under your neighbor’s deck and is scared or injured – and silent. All the flyers in the world are not going to help. You need to get in there and search for yourself.
When a cat is lost, the most important thing is to conduct a targeted search in the immediate area where the cat disappeared.
Most often this involves an aggressive, physical search of a cat’s territory – looking in every nook and cranny, under every porch and deck, in every shed and garage within a several-block radius.
It also involves canvassing your neighbors – letting them know that your cat is missing and asking them to keep an eye out (and ear out) for any sign of your beloved feline friend.
We have always asked people for permission to search their yards and barns and no one has ever said no.
Several kind souls, who were sure they’d seen one of our cats, allowed us to set up hunting cameras and traps on their property to help us in our search.
Regardless of the reason your cat has gone missing, don’t give up hope – expanding your search beyond just putting up lost cat posters can give you the best chance of finding your furry friend safe and sound.
Searching the same areas several times can also be productive as cats may move around and not always be in the same place.
Knowing which type of behavior your lost cat is exhibiting will help you determine where to look for them and how long your search might take.
But whether your cat has been gone for hours or weeks, never give up hope of finding him safe and sound!
Missing and lost cats: The statistics
An Australian study of 1,210 missing cats found the following:
- Only 61% of cats were found within one year.
- 34% of cats were recovered alive by the owner within 7 days.
- Physical searching increased the chance of finding the cat alive.
- 75% of cats were found within 500 m (approx. 1,640 ft.) of the point of escape.
- Up to 75% of cats with outdoor access traveled 1609 m (approx. 5,280 ft.), further than the distance traveled by indoor-only cats.
- Cats considered to be highly curious were more likely to be found inside someone else’s house compared to other personality types.
The findings suggest that “thorough physical searching is a useful strategy, and should be conducted within the first week after cats go missing.” (Huang et al., 2018).
I completely agree and would add that searching for a lot longer than a week can also produce a positive result.
Real-life examples of hiding, missing, and lost cats
Let’s look at some real-life examples based on my own experiences over the years.
Cat #1. Jethro
When we were moving house, our very fearful cat Jethro got nervous with all the packing and furniture moving and decamped to hide under the shed at the back of the garden.
Well, we got to moving day and he still wouldn’t come out. I’d leave food there for him and stand at the window inside the house to watch him come out and eat it. But if I went outside, he’d run back under the shed.
In the end, we carried on with the move and I stayed behind for 10 days, camping in an empty house and setting various traps for him that didn’t work.
For example, I’d leave the back window open and lie in wait at night, waiting for Jethro to come in. I had tied a piece of string to the window latch and would hold that string for dear life all night long.
The idea was that he’d venture inside the house to find some food and I’d pull on the string to close the window behind him.
The one and only time he did come in, he heard the window move as I pulled on the string and was back out before I, in my sleepy state, could even register what was happening.
In the end, I had to borrow a drop trap from a cat rescue. I left tuna fish in the trap without setting in for the first several hours so he’d get used to going inside without anything scary happening. After about 24 hours of that, he was reliably going in and out to eat, so I set the trap.
I eventually heard the trap door slam shut at 1.30 a.m. one cold night, and was out there in a flash to bring him into the house before he could go back to his hiding place. What a relief!
Cat #2. Magnus
Magnus disappeared because, unfortunately, our pet sitter inadvertently let him out when we had instructed them not to.
Magnus was an indoor-outdoor access cat who always stayed close to home, so when I returned from my trip and he wasn’t anywhere in the house or yard I knew something was wrong – especially when he hadn’t returned by the next morning.
We spent the next two weeks setting up traps and wildlife cameras and doing an arduous physical search of the surrounding forest and neighboring barns.
We finally found him after two weeks, hiding out in the upper level of a neighbor’s disused barn about 200 m (approx. 650 ft.) away from our home.
Even then he was too scared to be handled and we had to set a trap, leave the area, and go back after a few hours in the hope that he’d be there, enticed by the smell of the food. And he was!
Cat #3. Spencer
Spencer grew up on the street in Dubai and is therefore very worldly and savvy. So when he disappeared for a couple of nights last summer we weren’t unduly concerned. But then that stretched to three or four we started to really worry and started searching.
We ended up searching for a really long time (over three months). Our search area included forest, swamp, neighboring farms and barns, and all manner of disused farm buildings in the middle of nowhere.
We had no idea if he was near or far. We also had three false alarms – people calling us saying they’d seen him, and we’d go rushing off, only for it to be a different cat.
In the end, we randomly found Spencer after three and a half months, walking in a field a staggering 30 miles from home. We just happened to be driving past at the time. We couldn’t have been luckier.
He was so thin it was hard to be sure it was him, although he was friendly and his behavior and meow were the same. We took him to the vet the next day to check his microchip just to be sure, and it was indeed him.
What are the odds? So never give up!
Cat #4. Jasmine
Dubai street cat Jasmine was very fearful when we first adopted her. For the first two weeks, she squeezed herself into a tiny compartment of one of our cat trees.
She was in her own safe room with a selection of dry and wet food, water bowls, toys, and a litter tray and I would just pop in from time to time and make sure she was okay. But other than that I left her alone to relax and hide away in her own space.
Once she felt safe, she started coming out to greet me and we soon became the best of friends.
The key, in this case, was for me to accept the fact that she wanted to hide away and wait for her to make the first move, rather than try to force her to interact when she was terrified and had no idea what was going on.
Final thoughts
Whether your cat hides for two hours, two days, or two weeks, it’s important to try and understand why he’s hiding in the first place.
It could be that he’s scared of something – a new pet, loud noises, tradespersons in the home, or some other sudden change – or that he doesn’t yet feel safe in his new surroundings.
In most cases, it’s best not to force a scared cat out of hiding unless there is an urgent need (like if he’s ill or injured).
Try setting up the environment so the cat feels safe and give him time to learn to trust you. With patience and understanding, you’ll eventually be rewarded with some quality bonding time with your feline friend.
And if your cat is missing or lost, don’t give up. Spencer’s story proves that it’s very likely he’s out there somewhere. The trick is to never stop looking.
We were lucky enough to find Spencer relatively quickly compared to some cats who are missing for months or years, but every day counts. Keep searching, keep spreading the word, and don’t give up hope that you’ll get him back home safely. Good luck!
*PLAY, FEAR and SEEKING belong to the seven “core emotional feelings” or “brain systems” as described by neuroscientist and psychobiologist Jaak Panksepp. The other four are LUST, GRIEF, RAGE and CARE. Panksepp capitalized them to differentiate them from the regular use of the same words.
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Resources
- Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans – Jaak Panksepp
- Bringing up a litter of kittens: behavioural considerations – International Cat Care
- Canine and feline enrichment in the home and kennel: a guide for practitioners – Sarah Heath & Clare Wilson
- FEAR – Animal Emotions/Module 7 [Educational Course] – Dr. Karolina Westlund/Illis Animal Behaviour Courses
- How to Comfort a Scared Cat – PetMD
- Lost Cat Behavior – Missing Animal Response Network
- PLAY – Animal Emotions/Module 4 [Educational Course] – Dr. Karolina Westlund/Illis Animal Behaviour Courses
- Search Methods Used to Locate Missing Cats and Locations Where Missing Cats Are Found – Liyan Huang, Marcia Coradini, Jacquie Rand, & John M. Morton
- SEEKING – Animal Emotions/Module 6 [Educational Course] – Dr. Karolina Westlund/Illis Animal Behaviour Courses
- The effect of hiding enrichment on stress levels and behaviour of domestic cats (Felis sylvestris catus) in a shelter setting and the implications for adoption potential – K Kry and R Casey
- Why Is My Cat Hiding? – Battersea Dogs & Cats Home
