General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I hope everyone who thinks it's OK to "just breed her once" or "just buy one dog" reads this all the [View all]Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)1) They're smaller. This means they can get into more places, but also helps them pass below human radar; a pack of feral dogs is something communities register as "dangerous" because they hassle livestock, tear up garbage cans, attack people, etc. A colony of feral cats is relatively unobtrusive.
2) Despite having a more rigid diet (cats are obligate carnivores, dogs are opportunist omnivores) cats have more food sources. They catch and eat birds and rodents, frogs and lizards, and for some damn reason, people have a bad habit of actually putting out food "for the strays." Dogs generally need larger meals, which are much harder to come by in most communities.
3) Cats trend towards larger litters than dogs. Additionally, all cat breeds are pretty much the same, physiologically speaking, and feral mixes won't usually result in the weird complications that the broad variety of dog phenotypes can cause.
Cats are also much easier to capture, for pretty much all these reasons; smaller animals require smaller traps, their diets are easily used as bait, and the general uniformity means you know what you're getting out of a captured cat. A feral dog has a lot more variables going on.
...And that's why there are usually more shelter cats than dogs.