Cats love warm places and in their attempt to stay warm during the cold winter months, they sometimes climb into car engines to sleep. Car engines are warm long after they are turned off, and it’s this warmth that attracts cats to sleep under your hood.

Cats caught in moving engine parts can be seriously hurt or killed.

To avoid such traumatic episodes, it’s worth slowing down a little when you head off in your car in cold weather. Rattle your keys, bang the hood, slam the door shut, and rev the engine a couple of times rather than just leaping into your parked car and heading off without a pause. This should give sleeping cats just enough warning to escape before there’s rapidly moving ground beneath them.