Industry News · MEOW! Franchise Insights · Pet Industry Trends
If there was ever a moment to call “The Year of the Cat,” it’s now.
The American Pet Products Association’s 2025 Dog & Cat Report put 49 million U.S. households in the cat column for 2024, up from 40 million the year before — a 23% increase and the highest level on record. APPA’s newer data pushes that further still, to roughly 53 million households, or 39% of American homes. I’ve written about what those numbers mean for the market elsewhere. What I want to talk about here is something the spreadsheets don’t quite capture: why it happened.
Because this isn’t only an ownership statistic. It’s a cultural shift in how Americans think about cats.
For decades, dogs dominated the conversation around pet ownership. Dogs remain enormously popular, but cats have been gaining ground fast, and lifestyle change is a large part of the reason.
Cats are more adaptable to how a lot of people live now — apartments, smaller homes, unpredictable schedules. Their independence, modest space needs, and simpler care routines make them a realistic companion for busy professionals, younger households, and urban residents. The shift to remote and hybrid work strengthened the bond too. When you’re home all day, a cat stops being the pet you see in the evening and becomes the one sitting on your keyboard at two in the afternoon.
The trend I find most interesting isn’t how many homes have a cat. It’s how many cats those homes have.
Single-cat households
64% → 58%
The share of cat homes with just one cat has fallen steadily since 2018.
Homes with three or more cats
+36%
Over the same period. Two-cat households grew 8% alongside them.
There are practical and emotional reasons behind it. Cats often do better with feline company, particularly when their people are out during the day. And many cat lovers find that once the door is open to one cat, a second feels less like a decision than an inevitability.
From where I sit, this is the number that changes the business. A three-cat household isn’t three times the work of a one-cat household, but it is a longer visit, more litter boxes, more medications to track, and more individual personalities to read. It’s also a household far less likely to ask a neighbor to help out.
As the number of cat owners rises, so does what they spend. Today’s cat parents are investing in:
That last category is where the market has been slowest to catch up. Plenty of businesses will sell a cat owner a puzzle feeder. Far fewer will show up at their house twice a day to give a diabetic cat an injection while they’re out of town. The gap between what cat owners want and what’s actually available is widest in services, and that’s precisely where a specialist can build something.
Beyond economics, cats are having a genuine cultural moment. Social media elevated them — viral videos, internet-famous cats, and enormous online communities built around feline humor and education have reshaped how people see them.
Cats are no longer cast as aloof or mysterious pets living quietly in the background. They’re personalities. Companions. Arguably content creators.
One of my favorite findings in APPA’s reporting is that Gen Z and Millennial men are adopting cats at unprecedented rates — dismantling an old stereotype and ushering in the era of the “cat dad.” That single detail tells you how much has changed. Cat ownership used to carry a cultural script. It doesn’t anymore, and losing that script opened the category to millions of people who’d have quietly picked a dog a decade ago.
Millions of new cat-owning households. Growing spend on feline care. Real cultural enthusiasm. Together they point somewhere clear: businesses built around what cats specifically need are positioned well for what’s coming.
The future of the pet industry isn’t just going to the dogs.
For anyone already working in the pet space, paying attention to the rise of cat ownership isn’t optional anymore. And for anyone thinking about entering it, there may never have been a better moment to focus on cats.
Ownership opportunities in select markets
Build for the cats, not around them.
Tell us the city and state you have in mind and we’ll follow up personally. Start a franchise inquiry, or read the steps to ownership first.
This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, a franchise. An offer may be made only through delivery of a Franchise Disclosure Document in compliance with applicable law. Market and industry figures cited above describe the pet care sector generally and are not representations of the financial performance of any MEOW! franchise.
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