A curious cat that sneaked into an open box was shipped across the United States to an Amazon warehouse after its unknowing owners sealed it inside.

Carrie Clark's pet, Galena, vanished from her Utah home on April 10, sparking a furious search that involved plastering "missing" posters around the neighborhood.

But a week later, a vet hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in Los Angeles got in touch to say the cat had been discovered in a box -- alongside several pairs of boots -- by a warehouse worker at an Amazon center.

"I ran to tell my husband that Galena was found and we broke down upon realizing that she must have jumped into an oversized box that we shipped out the previous Wednesday," Clark told KSL TV in Salt Lake City.

"The box was a 'try before you buy,' and filled with steel-toed work boots."

Clark and her husband jetted to Los Angeles, where they discovered Amazon employee Brandy Hunter had rescued Galena -- a little hungry and thirsty after six days in a cardboard box, but otherwise unharmed.

"I could tell she belonged to someone by the way she was behaving," said Hunter, according to Amazon.

"I took her home that night and went to the vet the next day to have her checked for a microchip, and the rest is history."