This was big (but not totally surprising) news in 2003: a survey by the
American Pet Products Manufacturing Association showed that more Americans had cats as pets than dogs. According to the survey, more than 60 percent of households in the United States owned pets. The tally was 77.7 million cats, 65 million dogs and (in a distant third) 17.3 million “small animals” (rabbits, gerbils and the like). Gone are the days when cats were considered second place (in numbers, affection and so on) after dogs. Couple this bit of news with another bit of trivia: it’s inevitable that there are a lot more feral cats in the United States than there are wild dogs.
