My MA town census form wants to know how many dogs we have. Dogs must be licensed in my town. As to why they require dogs to be licensed and not cats, I don’t know the reasons.
And we’re supposed to be filling out the town census form every year. If you don’t return your census form they can remove you from the voter rolls.
Just a guess but…
Dogs ‘traditionally’ involve more overhead for public works. There is the dog catcher - who tends to go after dogs who might be a threat if they went feral (alley cats aren’t seen as as much of a threat). Cats are often indoors animals, so the concern about rabies and other “endanger the public health” issues is often less. Dogs poop in parks during walks, requiring clean up crews.
My city has you license both dogs and cats and requires rabies certification for both. We are currently debating allowing backyard chickens, which is causing all sorts of people to yell discussing the costs of chickens to the city - would the city need to catch chickens if they got out? Would we license chickens so when they get picked up by animal control they could be returned? (My city is amusingly dysfunctional though).
Do they even make collars that small?
Birds are typically leg banded.
Get out of here with your facts.
Maybe the cat is going to be on a mewt court duty.
Plus there’s the whole “Are cats really domesticated?” question. Don’t get me wrong, I love cats and three of them live in my house. Or perhaps, three cats allow me to live in THEIR house.
Mine are inside kitties, but around here, there are neighborhood cats. They wander in and out of people’s houses, and get fed by several families. Nobody claims exclusive ownership of them, and they seem to be independent agents. I don’t let them into my house, because my cats don’t have fleas, or ticks, or other parasites, and mine are also disease free, and I’d like to keep it that way. This doesn’t keep the neighborhood cats from trying to get into my house. I do have a small shelter set up for them.
I’ve talked to my neighbors, and while several of them will say that they feed them, and their kids like the cats, none of them really claim them. The only reason I don’t take the cats to the shelter is because I know it would break the kids’ hearts. But I’m tempted.
I was kidding.
ow much was that sarcasm punctuation thingy, again?
Clearly this is Demo-cat thuggery, Boston-style.
Holy cow, a talking cat
Well of course. Everybody knows that dogs are fair-minded. A cat will just scratch up the jury chair and refuse to listen to the judge’s instructions 
Our local city census asks about cats and dogs so I suppose either of my critters could wind up getting called for jury duty.
The oldest one is 22, so he would even qualify. (Well, he’s cracked out of his mind, but I’m not sure that would actually disqualify him.)
This was not necessarily the case at all times. Indiana solely used voter registrations until just a few years ago (2003?), and I can imagine some locales still only use them.