Woman gets text late at night—next day finds her cat locked inside shop

A cat from Reykjavík, Iceland, has gone viral after being accidentally locked inside a shop overnight—and calmly spending the night curled up on a pile of shearling.

Volvo, a one-year-old half Norwegian Forest Cat, belongs to 42-year-old Reykjavík resident Arna Sigrún Haraldsdóttir. She said she was alerted to his latest adventure by a message from a neighbor.

“Late last night I got a message from a kind neighbour telling me Volvo was locked inside one of the shops,” Haraldsdóttir wrote in the caption of a now-viral Instagram video posted to the account @volvo_the_cat. “So this morning I went to check and found him snuggled on some shearling by the window.”

In the video, Volvo peers out of the display window, not at all worried about his predicament.

Haraldsdóttir told Newsweek this wasn’t the first time Volvo had found himself trapped inside the same store. “The first time I went out looking for him and saw him through the window. I went to another Icewear shop that stays open longer and they had to ring the store manager who came and let him out,” she said.

Pictures from the viral video where Volvo the cat was found in the local store.

“This time I got a message from someone who saw him in the shop window and it was late so I couldn’t get anybody to come and let him out. I rang the security company and told them about it because I wouldn’t want them to think someone had broken in if he started wandering around the shop or knocking something over. The guy on the phone just laughed and said this wasn’t the first call they got about this,” Haraldsdóttir said.

Because the shop staff all know and adore Volvo, his owner was not worried. “We just left him there for the night,” she said. “The video that has gone viral is of me going to check on him in the morning before they had opened. I knew he was in no danger or discomfort so I wasn’t worried about him at all. My only concern was that there is no litter box there… Thankfully he left no little presents.”

Haraldsdóttir said Volvo was born on April Fool’s Day in 2024 and has been exploring ever since. “When we got him we had planned on him being an indoor cat,” she said, but quickly it became clear that Volvo wanted to go outside. At first, they would take him out together, but once he was old enough to roam freely, Volvo began making friends around downtown Reykjavík.

“At first when he got to go out by himself he went to a nearby hotel-bar and found himself a sweet spot on top of a radiator. Then he started wandering a bit further and now he usually hangs out in the shops near the neighborhood square,” his owner said.

Pictures of Volvo the cat on his adventures in Reykjavík.

Should Cats Go Outside?

Letting cats roam outside is a personal choice for owners. U.K. cat charity Cats Protection say that allowing cats to roam outdoors can help them to express natural behavior, explore and get more exercise.

On the other side, charity PSDA advise that benefits “often outweigh the risks, as cats thrive on outdoor stimulation.” While scientists have found that cats who roam outdoors were almost three times more likely to be infected by parasites when compared with cats who only lived indoors.

Despite the occasional chaos, Volvo has become a beloved fixture in the area. “I hear a lot of stories from the staff at the places Volvo hangs out at. I find it so heartwarming how much people love him,” Haraldsdóttir said. “They get tourists to the shops who see Volvo and will then come again just to look for him and say goodbye before they leave the country.”

Haraldsdóttir started Volvo’s Instagram account after shop staff encouraged her to document his adventures. “It’s been a very useful tool for us to communicate,” she said. “I never thought it would get so big. It was just supposed to be a cute little outlet to share videos of Volvo.”

Now, Volvo’s fame extends far beyond Reykjavík, with more than 35,000 followers and millions of views on his videos.

“There is even a guided cat tour where a guide takes groups to all the places where local cats hang out and then go for coffee and cake at The Cat Café,” Haraldsdóttir said. “I wouldn’t mind getting a percentage from those tours.”

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