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Pierce: He thinks all dogs are boys and all cats are girls.
Troy: There's no way to disprove that. Have you ever seen a cat penis?

It seems whenever cats and dogs are paired together, the dog will almost always be male while the cat will almost always be female. The cat will be sassy, intelligent, but occasionally cruel and... well... catty. The dog will be crude and sometimes savage, but mostly kind.

Often their owners will be the same sex as the animals. Ergo, women will be cat people and men will be dog people.

Even if they're not contrasted with another species of animal, strangers will tend to assume by default that dogs are male — especially large or intimidating breeds — and cats are female. So widespread is this trope that a common misconception among children is that all dogs are male and that all cats are female.

This trope could be due to the way dog's bodies are shaped and the way cats' bodies are shaped. Dogs' bodies have big chests and small bellies and they tend to look more muscular. Cats' bodies have small chests and they look rounder and curvier. Dog faces also tend to be either blocker or narrower and more angular (giving them a sharper, "rugged" look), while cats usually have more delicate features (making them look "prettier"). Another feature playing part is this trope is the sounds they make: dogs growl and bark in a deep, masculine voice, whereas cats make high-pitched, thus feminine "meow" sounds. Cats tend to be much more elegant and graceful in their mannerisms than dogs, furthering the perception of femininity. Or it could just be that the words "Feline" and "Female" sound vaguely similar.

Speaking of inversions with the owners; if a male character owns a cat, it's often a sign of shared personality, say eccentricity, or intelligence level (thus masculine/catlike) as in Garfield. If a woman owns a dog, it's often a sign of shared emotional bonds (thus feminine/doglike) as in Bolt.

Large wild cats are less likely to fall into this trope than domestic cats are since they are seen as powerful and aggressive and therefore masculine. Similarly, certain breeds of dogs, mostly small or showy ones like Chihuahuas or poodles, as well as foxes, are frequently depicted as female or being owned by women due to their association with fashion and beauty.

An Animal Stereotype. See also Cat Girl and Gender Equals Breed. Often a case of Huge Guy, Tiny Girl. Subtrope of Species Equals Gender and Cat/Dog Dichotomy. Compare to Men Like Dogs, Women Like Cats for another way gender stereotypes are used when it comes to dogs and cats.


Examples and downplays:

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    Advertising 
  • Max and Molly, the mascots of 1-800-PET-MEDS.
  • The adverts for Animal Friends Pet Insurance feature a claymation female cat and male dog.
    • There's also a cel-animated PSA about taking care of your pets from the early 2000s. It's hosted by a male dog and a female cat.
  • Downplayed in the current commercials for Blue Wildnerness pet food; female pronouns are used in the cat food commercials ("She's driven by a primal desire for meat"), but no pronouns are used at all in the dog food commercials.
  • Some of the pet food brands manufactured by Mars, Incorporated included Sheba, a brand of cat food, and Cesar, a brand of dog food. Sheba is a female name, while Cesar is a male name. The slogan of Cesar was even "to love him like he loves you".
  • One mascot for Pop Tarts is an aversion of an aversion: The poodle is an exception among dog breeds, commonly depicted as female in fiction, but the Pop Tarts poodle is male, despite him having a fluffy pink trim (and is proud of it).
  • 1970s commercials for Purina Puppy Chow used the jingle, "Don't treat your puppy like a dog-dog-dog, feed him Puppy Chow”; for Kitten Chow, it was "Don't treat your kitten like a full-grown cat, give her Kitten Chow."
  • In the 1980s there was an animated advert for Quavers crisps which featured an anthropomorphised male dog who was attracted to an anthropomorphised female cat.
  • Commercials for Robo-Chi pets marketed Poo-Chi as a male dog and Meow-Chi as a female cat.
  • Tetley's teabags have an advert with a talking male dog and a talking female cat. They also say "It's raining chaps and gals!", in a similar way to how humans say "It's raining cats and dogs!".

    Anime & Manga 
  • Bleach:
    • Captains Sajin Komamura and Yoruichi Shihoin. Komamura comes from a clan whose banishment to the Animal Realm left them cursed to remain in wolf-like form but can temporarily regain human form with a special technique. Yoruichi has the ability to transform into a black cat and has a Super Mode, Shunkō: Raiju Senkei, which grants her a cat's tail, ears, and clawed paws.
    • Downplayed with Toshiro Hitsugaya and his lieutenant Rangiku Matsumoto. Rangiku's Zanpakuto is named Haineko which translates to "Ash Cat" and she has the lazy, playful personality associated with cats. Toshiro was dressed as a werewolf in Ichigo's dream during a filler episode, whereas his female childhood friend Hinamori is dressed as a bakeneko, which also fulfills this trope.
  • Denji, the main character of Chainsaw Man, is a young man heavily associated with dogs. His closest female friend Power is similarly associated with cats, and even has a pet cat.
  • Digimon Adventure has Yamato's partner Gabumon (a dinosaur in a wolf pelt whose evolutions are actual wolves), as well as Hikari's partner Tailmon (whose earlier stages follow a cat-dog-cat transition, in an odd play of the trope). Tailmon even needed to go through a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Invoked in Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odysseywhen Nobita, Doraemon and gang enters Wan-Nyan City, a world populated by andromorphic cats and dogs. To blend with the local populace, everyone puts on Doraemon's animal headbands (which turns them into animal-humans); while Nobita, Suneo and Gian gets dog disguises, Shizuka (the only girl among them) on the other hand becomes a cat.
  • Magical Girl anime Hana no Ko Lunlun had Nubo and Cato, a male dog and a female cat respectively. Partially subverted, as they're not really a dog and a cat but two fairies from the Flower Star who have taken up animal forms: in reality, Nubo is a Big Beautiful Man and Cato is a white-haired girl.
  • Inuyasha: One of Shippo's illustrations accurately portray Inuyasha and Koga as dog/wolf people, but also draws Kagome as a cat girl.

    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Heroes: In the seventh season, the ambassadors of Dog Planet and Cat Planet both have children who attend the Superstar School along with the Supermen on Planet Xing. The dog kid, Lele, is a boy while the cat kid, Keke, is a girl.
  • Hayop Ka!: The Nimfa Dimaano Story has this with the main cast at least, with female cat Nimfa and her male dog lovers Roger and Iñigo, but literal bitches (female dogs) are also present in the form of Iñigo's mum and sister, and his previous poodle girlfriend.

    Card Games 
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG has Felice and Wulf within the Lightsworn archetype. Ferris has the same effect as Wulf, which is to summon themselves if they are sent to the Graveyard from the deck. Felice is a Cat Girl and Wulf is a Wolf Man.

    Comic Books 
  • One of Catwoman's adversaries is a man named Kai who uses the alias Hellhound. Both were trained by the Armless Master.
  • Similarly, The Defenders reintroduces Hellcat's ex-husband Buzz Baxter (originally the Satellite Love Interest in the semi-canonical Patsy Walker book) as a villain called Mad Dog.
  • Superman:
  • Vampirella:
    • Two of Vampirella's allies are a male werewolf named Tristan and a woman named Pantha who can transform into a black panther.
    • A story from the Harris years has Pantha fighting a pack of all-male Nazi werewolves.
    • In the crossover with Dark Shadows, Pantha is paired with the werewolf Quentin Collins.

    Comic Strips 
  • Crabgrass: Kevin firmly believes this to be the case in this comic, and tries to get his mom to back him up.
    Kevin: Can you please explain Miles that all dogs are boys and cats are girls?
  • Just Like Cats & Dogs, a single-panel comic drawn by Dave T. Phipps and distributed by King Features Syndicate, takes this trope and runs with it.
  • Krazy Kat has the titular female cat and Offissa Bull Pupp, a male dog. Although Krazy was sometimes portrayed as a male. Word of God is that the main characters weren't male or female so much as genderless whatnots he referred to as "pixies".
  • Pickles has Roscoe the dog and Muffin the cat.
  • U.S. Acres has Cody, a male dog, and Blue, a female cat. These two characters were exclusive to the strip and not present in the Animated Adaptation on Garfield and Friends.

    Fairy Tales 
  • In tale type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children", of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, the king marries the youngest of three sisters of marriageable age, due to her promising to give birth to children of wondrous aspect. Her elder sisters, out of jealousy, replace the children for anmals (usually puppies). However, the antagonistic sisters may replace the male children for puppies, and the female children for kittens in some variants.

    Fan Works 

     Film — Animated 
  • Bolt also has a Two Guys and a Girl version of this with Bolt and Mittens, but the second guy's a hamster named Rhino.
  • Coco: Dante is a male Xolo stray dog and Pepita is a female jaguar alebrije with rams horns and wings. Pepita is a house cat when she crosses into the Land of the Living, giving a straighter example of this trope.
  • Gwendolyn the cat and Buster the dog in The Fearless Four.
  • In The Great Mouse Detective, there is Toby (a male dog owned by Basil) and Felicia (a female cat owned by Ratigan).
  • Here's the Plan, a Chilean short film, has a married male dog and female cat couple as the main characters.
  • How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World: Behaviorwise, Toothless has always been an amalgamation of various animals, with dog and cat featuring in more or less equal measures. The Light Fury, however, is basically all cat.
  • Nefer-Kitty the cat and Tut the dog of Moses: Egypt's Great Prince.
  • In Roadside Romeo, Romeo forms a gang of all male dogs... plus a cat, who happens to also be the only female member of the gang!
  • In Treasure Planet, Captain Amelia and Dr. Doppler are the Funny Animal version of this. When they're married, their children even prove to be Gender Equals Breed. The Licensed Game shows that they are the same species, with a form of Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism, by allowing you to recruit members of their race, with all the males as dogs and all the females as cats.
  • All of the dogs in Up are male (or, at least, they are all given masculine voices by their translator collars). This creates some Fridge Logic when you realize that Muntz has lived alone with the dogs for 60 years, so he must have gone through several generations of them... but this trope apparently takes precedence.
  • Watership Down has a farm with a cat and dog. The dog is male and the cat Tab is female. Notable because the cat was male in the book.

    Film — Live Action 

    Literature 
  • Alfie from Dear Hound is a male dog. His owners also own a female cat named Florence.
  • Broadly applies to Harry Potter. Mr. Filch owns a female cat while Hagrid owns a male dog—-they can be seen as counterparts since their owners are both Hogwarts caretakers with contrasting personalities. When it comes to Animagus forms and Patronuses, the characters who get cats are women (McGonagall and Umbridge) and the characters who get dogs are men (Sirius and Ron). All the werewolves we encounter are also male.
  • Katt vs. Dogg: Oscar the dog, and Molly the cat.
  • The Shy Little Kitten and the Poky Little Puppy, respectively, from the Little Golden Books franchise.
  • The Name of the Cat by Barbara Holland, an anecdotal nonfiction book, notes "Men who hate cats and women say cats are like women and will refer to the most swaggeringly masculine tom as 'she'."
  • A Night in the Lonesome October got Snuff, the canine familiar of Jack, is the male part of the pairing with Graymalk, female feline familiar to Jill. There is a clear bloke/chick dynamic to their doggy/catty repartee and vice versa.
  • Les Voyageurs Sans Souci: Aunt Ursule's cat Blanchebelle is female; Rosalie's father's dog Timoleon is male.
  • In The Wheel of Time, female magicians attract cats while males attract dogs.
  • Rosemary Wells's "Yoko" and "Timothy" series has the recurring dog twins Frank and Frank who are both male while most of the cat characters are female such as Grace, Juanita and Sylvia and Olive who showed up in the book "Yoko Learns To Read" and "Yoko's Writes Her Name". Yoko herself is the most notable female cat character.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In the pilot of The Brady Bunch, the boys have a male dog, Tiger, and the girls have a female cat, Fluffy. Only the dog continued to the series, and even him for not very long due to Animal Existence Failure.
  • In Community, when the group is criticizing Troy they cite his belief that all dogs are boys and all cats are girls. "There's no way to prove it!" he insists. "Have you ever seen a cat penis?"
  • Kamen Rider:
    • In Kamen Rider 555, main character Takumi Inui is revealed to be the Wolf Orphnoch. Female lead Mari Sonoda is then revealed in the Paradise Regained film to be Wildcat Orphnoch.
    • Kamen Rider Zero-One: The AIMS Riders are Isamu Fuwa, who becomes the wolf-themed Kamen Rider Vulcan, and Yua Yaiba, who becomes the cheetah-themed Kamen Rider Valkyrie.
  • Lomax (the titular character) and Delta in Lomax, the Hound of Music
  • In the UK live-action/animation Edutainment show Mop and Smiff, Mop is a male dog and Smiff is a female cat. Justified, as they were presenter Mike Amatt's real-life pets.
  • Played with in My Name Is Earl. Earl's ex-girlfriend Jessie goes through Training from Hell to become a Bounty Hunter in order to get revenge on Joy for a) stealing Earl from her and b) knocking out her two front teeth. As part of her training, Jessie trades in her cat for a large dog. Although the gender of neither one of her pets is specified, the implication of the trope is there.
  • Discussed in the NewsRadio episode "Hair" when Beth and Max attempt to rename Lisa's puppy from "Daisy" to "Frankie." "All dogs are male," says Beth, and "all cats are female!" When presented with evidence that the puppy is, indeed, female, Max invokes the distinction between gender and sex.
  • Power Rangers S.P.D.: The chief is Anubis "Doggie" Kruger and the technician is Kat Manx.
  • Sizzle and Nuzzle in The Puzzle Place.
  • Red Dwarf: Both averted and played with in the episode "Parallel Universe" in which the Red Dwarf crews encounters gender-inverted counterparts of themselves from a parallel universe. The Cat (himself a male), is excited to meet his female counterpart but discovers instead the counterpart is a (also male) Dog.
  • Saturday Night Live:
    • In an old WWII spy-movie sketch, one of the cliche labored password phrases was "Cats are nothing more than effeminate dogs."
    • Later in the series, January Jones, imitating a House Wife from The '50s, said to start pet names with "Mr." or "Ms." depending on species. "Remember: All dogs are male; all cats are female."

    Other Sites 

    Tabletop Games 
  • In 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, there are two types of the Little Bit Beastly race called shifters: the canine Longtooth shifters, and the feline Razorclaws. D&D's illustrations have always been good at depicting both genders equally, but looking through multiple sourcebooks one gets the impression that all Longtooth shifters are men and all Razorclaw shifters are women.

    Theatre 
  • The Blue Bird has Tylette the female cat and Tylo the male dog.
  • The helpful cat and dog in the concentration camp opera Brundibar are respectively female and male. The cat is sly, but not bitchy, whereas the dog is exuberantly friendly.

     Video Games 
  • Bayonetta
    • The female-only Umbran Witches can use an ability called Beast Within to transform into various animals, one of which is a large cat in order to move at high speeds, with Bayonetta getting a Panther, Jeanne a Lynx, and Rosa a Tiger. While only a single example exists, the male-only Lumen Sages seem to have the same ability, except instead of a big cat they transform into a lupine, in Balder's case, a white wolf.
    • In Bayonetta 3, Strider, the strange werewolf who periodically antagonizes our heroines, turns out to be Luka, the man Bayonetta loves, whose distant faerie ancestry starts acting up due to the multiversal obliteration done by Singularity, causing him to black out, transform and go berserk. It's not until the climax of the game that one of his alternate selves help stabilize his control over his werewolf transformation.
  • A cross-media example: Splinx the robot cat in the Doctor Who video game Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror is referred to by female pronouns in the guide, while the actual series famously had a robot dog who was referred to by male pronouns.
  • Darkstalkers has Felicia, a catwoman, and Jon Talbain, a werewolf.
  • In Doctor Who And The Mines Of Terror, the Doctor is accompanied by a robot cat named Splinx, who is referred to by female pronouns, as a counterpart to the series's K9, a robot dog who is referred to by male pronouns.
  • Dusty Revenge and Dusty Raging Fist has andromorphic feline bandits serving as an all-female Amazon Brigade enemy type. The first game also have a feline Fortune Teller named Gladdius, who's an elderly woman.
  • Genshin Impact:
    • In Inazuma, the dog/human hybrid Gorou is male, but the Cat Girl Kirara is a nekomata.
    • Cat-themed vision bearers as a whole are female (Dehya, Diona, Keqing) but dog/wolf themed vision bearers are male (Cyno, Razor)
  • Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil introduces Popka the dog who's one of the game's leading characters next to Klonoa and Lolo. While one of the main antagonists is a female cat named Tat who serves as Leorina's sidekick.
  • In Luigi's Mansion 3, the rough-and-tumble good-boy Polterpup and his male owner Luigi are countered in this game by the female Hellen Gravely and her slinky, feminine Polterkitty, creating this gendered pet dynamic.
  • Master of the Monster Lair: The cat monsters are female; the dog and wolf monsters are male.
  • In Pokémon, the Growlithe line has a 75% chance of being male. The Skitty and Glameow lines have a 75% chance of being female. That last one is justified by apparently being based on calico cats which really are mostly female; the combination of color genes involved requires two X chromosomes, so for a male to have the coloration requires that they have two Xs and a Y chromosome, which is abnormal and leads to sterility but is mostly harmless otherwise, or that their bodies be "chimeras" resulting from two zygotes merging together (a rarer condition). Odd thing is, they can breed. (See the trope for more than you ever wanted to know.)
  • The DS game Solatorobo appears to make use of this as the protagonists are a male dog and female cat. However, the Caninu and Felineko races are not gender-exclusive, and female Caninu and male Felineko not only exist but are nearly as abundant as their counterparts. In fact, the other teased dog-cat pairing, Merveille and Béluga, inverts this.
    • Its predecessor, Tail Concerto on PS1 plays this straight, with the protagonist being a male dog while the love interest and an antagonist being a cat.

    Webcomics 
  • The eponymous heroes of the late Rusty Haller's anthropomorphic Tuxedo and Martini Spy Fiction Ace And Queenie.
  • The Bedfellows: Sheen's parents consist of a female cat and a male dog.
  • The protagonists of Housepets!; respectively, Grape and Peanut.
  • Technically they're shapeshifters, but the current forms taken by Reseda and Patrick in But I'm a Cat Person are cat/female and dog/male. Possibly inverted with their more dangerous counterparts, the Tiger and the Wolf.
  • Johnnie the male dog and Bonnie the female cat couple in the pornographic webcomic Kit n Kay Boodle.
  • Discussed in this Mountain Time strip, which also delves into the plausibility of the sex assignments in Jurassic Park.
  • In Overcompensating, Jeffrey mentions thinking that dogs and cats were the same species, with a Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism that followed this trope.
  • Picpak Dog: Played straight as the title character, a pink dog, is male and married to Wakky, a female blue cat.
  • Pixie and Brutus: Pixie, a Cute Kitten, is female, while Brutus, an ex-military German Shepherd, is male. They have a sweet little sister/protective big brother dynamic.
  • The online comic Puppity has the titular character's mother be a cat and their father be a dog.
  • The thirteen kids in the main cast of Precocious have female cats outnumbering the males, and male dogs outnumbering the females. However, since they're only animals because of a Furry Lens, their species is never actually relevant to anything.

    Web Originals 
  • Kakao Friends (the mascots for messaging app Kakao Talk) has a male dog named Frodo dating a female cat named Neo.
  • Pusheen the cat is ostensibly female but has a male counterpart who is a dog called Pugsheen.
  • Although a little off-topic as it's more Furry Fandom than just plain old animals: In Trinton Chronicles we have Bone, a male Shepard dog who is not very bright but fairly creative, and Kathrine, a white Persian who is more motherly then bitchy.
  • One The Weekly Planet video mentions the fact that not all ladybugs are ladies, though the other co-host asks that all cats are girls and all dogs are boys, right? This is likely a reference to the Community example, as the hosts were just referring to Donald Glover, whose character in that show legitimately held this believe.

    Western Animation 
  • On Adventure Time, Jake the Dog has his female counterpart, Cake the Cat, who's featured in Ice King and Marceline's Gender Flip Fanfic.
  • Animaniacs has Rita and Runt, as seen in the page pic. However, Runt doesn't realize Rita isn't a dog no matter how many people (Rita included) he hears describing her as a cat.
  • The Bagel and Becky Show has Bagel, the male dog, and Becky, the female cat.
  • The titular Bob the Builder has Pilchard, a female cat, while Farmer Pickles has Scruffty, a male dog.
  • Besides the protagonist and titular horse of Bojack Horseman, the other animal main characters are Mr. Peanutbutter (an overly friendly male dog) and Princess Carolyn (a clever female cat).
  • Boo Boom! The Long Way Home: two of the main characters are the male bulldog Jack and the female cat Aurelia.
  • Boy Girl Dog Cat Mouse Cheese has Dog (male) and Cat (female).
  • In the CatDog special, “The Big Parent Mystery”, when Cat Dog finds who they think might be their parents, their supposed mom is a cat, and their supposed dad is a dog.
  • In Dennis And Gnasher Unleashed, Walter's pet (counterpart to the male dog Gnasher) is the female cat Clawdia.
  • The Crayon Box: Dotty is a female cat, and Lump is a male dog.
  • Dog City: Bugsy and Miss Kitty.
  • In Doug, Doug's dog Porkchop is male, and Roger's cat Stinky is revealed to be female.
  • Gasp! has Dogbox, the male dog, and Catflap, the female cat.
  • Hector the dog and his roommate ZsaZsa the cat, in Hector's House.
  • A Hollywood Hounds Christmas: The main protagonist are two male dogs (Dude and Cuz) and a female cat (Rosie). The dancing dog and cat on the Mushy Chum commercial are also male and female, respectively.
  • In Invader Zim, when female Irken Tak comes to Earth to steal Zim's mission, her female S.I.R. unit Mimi is disguised as a cat. This is in contrast to GIR's disguise which is a dog.
  • The Looney Tunes pairing of Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot, starting with Feed the Kitty.
  • The eponymous characters of the Christmas Special Nick & Noël. Guess which one is which.
  • The Hub's Pound Puppies has the upper-crust couple Madame Pickypuss and Mr. Cuddlesworth.
  • Most of the dogs in Puppy in My Pocket: Adventures in Pocketville, including Magic, William, Danny, Zull, and Gort, are male and most of the cats, including Ava, Eva, Balloon, and Mela, are female.
  • Rugrats:
    • Tommy has his dog Spike, and Angelica has a pet cat named Fluffy, who's female. Later subverted when Chowder (Susie's tomcat), Fifi and Pepper (Chuckie's female dogs) join the cast.
    • In Rugrats Go Wild! (their crossover with The Wild Thornberrys) Spike was put at odds with a female clouded leopard named Suri. He was voiced by Bruce Willis, she was voiced by Christie Hynde.
  • In The Simpsons, Bart has Santa's Little Helper [male dog] and Lisa has Snowball II [female cat].
  • In the South Park episode "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", Stan adopts Sparky, a gay male dog. Cartman has a cat named Mr. Kitty, who was shown as a female in heat in "Cat Orgy". Then Mr. Kitty is a functional tomcat in "Major Boobage".
  • Elsie (a female cat) and Harry (a male dog) from Disney's Stanley.
  • Strawberry Shortcake, Custard the cat is female and Pupcake, the dog, is male. Both characters appear in all incarnations of the franchise and are both pets to the titular character.
  • Kitty Katswell and Dudley Puppy from T.U.F.F. Puppy follow this trope. One of the rare instances where the cat is actually the larger one of the duo (at least by height, in this case).
  • Unikitty! has the title character Unikitty, a female cat-unicorn hybrid, along with her younger brother Puppycorn, a male dog-unicorn hybrid.
  • Dutch preschool series Woezel And Pip, has the titular protagonists being two male puppies, while their friend Buurpoes is a female kitten.
  • Dog (a male dog) and Cat (a female cat) from WordWorld.

    Other 
  • In the German language (which has three grammatical genders), there is "die Katze" and "der Hund", the former being feminine and the latter masculine. note 
    • In lower sociolects of Hebrew, khatula (חֲתוּלָה), lit. ‘she-cat’ will be used as the generic term, although with the stress on the penultimate syllable (not on the last one, like in standard Hebrew). This was formerly associated mostly with people from Jerusalem; as a matter of fact, the Maccabi-Mutsri Square in Jerusalem is usually called ‘The Khatulotnote  Square’. As for dogs, the masculine is usually used for a generic term, as is the case with the vast majority of animals.
    • Czech works similarly to German here. Generic terms "kočka" ("cat") is feminine and "pes" ("dog") is masculine, with specific words for the other genders "kocour" ("tomcat") and "fena" (female dog). Interestingly enough, the words for kitten ("kotě") and puppy ("štěně") are, along with other words for young animals and humans, neuter, making them gender-neutral.
    • Romanian also shares this similarity. Generic terms "pisică" and "mâță" ("cat") are feminine and "câine" ("dog") is masculine, the specific words for other genders "motan", "mâț" ("tomcat") and "cățea" (female dog). However, there are masculine generic terms for kittens "pisic", "pisoi", but the term for a female kitten "pisicuță" is also used as a generic term. Also interesting, the Romanian word for "mutt", that being "javră" is feminine.
  • "Kitty" is a nickname applied almost solely to female humans, even though it's gender-neutral for cats. "Mutt" is a (rare) nickname applied almost exclusively to human males, although dogs of either sex can be mutts. More specifically, women named Catherine, Catrina, or some other variation might literally go by "Cat" for short.
  • "Pussy", which invokes cats, is sometimes slang for the female reproductive system, but there is no male equivalent invoking dogs.
  • While colloquially a unisex term for our domesticated wolves, "Dog" is also used as a term for nearly any male canine (and some non-canines like hyenas and weasels)
  • There is a brand of pet items (most notably Christmas stockings containing toys and treats) that follow this trope. The dog items range is named "Good Boy" while items for cats use "Good Girl".
  • In Japanese gay slang, "neko" (literally "cat") refers to the effeminate partner in a butch/fem pair.
  • In the BDSM community, men often prefer Puppy Play while women often prefer Kitten Play, though either sex can do all different kinds of Pet Play. (That said, the number of men openly engaging in Kitten Play is often far rarer than the number of women openly engaging in Puppy Play.)
  • The theme park Holiday World has a couple mascots themed after a Holiday. The park mascot named Holidog is a male dog while Kitty Claws who's the host of the Halloween event is a female black cat who wears a tutu.
  • When discussing the creation of Catwoman, Bob Kane was quoted saying "I felt that women were feline creatures and men were more like dogs".
  • Terms like "cathouse" (meaning a brothel) and "Cat Fight" imply that "cat" is a synonym for an attractive woman.
  • The Minnesota NBA team is called the Minnesota Timberwolves, while the Minnesota WNBA team is called the Minnesota Lynx.


Inversions:

    Anime & Manga 
  • Darker than Black has Mao, a deep-voiced guy in the body of a black cat. In the interequel episodes, there is a female Contractor who similarly inhabits the body of a dog and a pretty mutt-looking one at that.
  • Digimon Tamers: Renamon is a female fox Digimon while Leomon is a male lion-humanoid Digimon. Though it should be noted that both have female tamers.
  • In Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure, two of the Cures' animal partners are Latte, a female dog, and Nyatoran, a male cat.
  • In Pokémon: The Original Series, a Running Gag featured the Team Rocket trio's Meowth being tormented by a female Snubbull.

    Fan Works 

    Film — Animated 
  • Oliver & Company inverts this trope with Jenny's two pets. Oliver is a male kitten and Georgette is a female dog. Fagin's mostly male gang of dogs also includes one female, Rita.
  • Inversion: In The Princess and the Frog, there is Charlotte's pet kitten Marcel, who is male, and her pet dog Stella, who is female.

    Literature 
  • In the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix, there are two magical creatures. Mogget the cat is male and the Disreputable Dog is, in her words, technically the Disreputable Bitch.
  • Inverted with the Enid Blyton book, Bimbo and Topsy, chronicling the various misadventures of Bimbo, a male cat, and his bestie, Topsy the female pup. Bimbo in fact spends most of the stories behaving like an elder brother towards Topsy, whose feminine nature is a frequent plot point of several shorts.
  • The picture book Bittle features a male cat named Nigel and a female dog named Julia.
  • Each Little Universe: the two cats owned (or unofficially adopted) by male protagonists TM and Veggie are both male. Keelut, the canine companion of female survival show host Riegel O'Ryan, is female - as such, Men Like Dogs, Women Like Cats is also inverted.
  • Japanese picture book The Kindly Lion/The Gentle Lion (Yasashii Lion) by Takashi Yanase is focused on an orphaned male lion named Buru-buru who gets adopted by a female dog named Muku-muku.

    Live-Action TV 

    Theatre 
  • In the Chilean children's play "Carolita, Chumingo, y el Árbol Solo" ("Carolita, Chumingo, and the Lonely Tree"), the dog was a female and the cat was a male. They doubled as Savvy Male Cat, Energetic Female Dog: the tomcat was a lazy and old feline, the much younger puppy was a Genki Girl.

    Video Games 
  • As noted above, Pokémon generally plays this straight with mostly male Growlithe and mostly female Skitty. However, special mention goes to the Snubbull line, bulldog-like Pokemon that are 75% likely to be female.
    • Both of the Fire-type Starter Pokémon from the Nintendo 3DS generations are also an inversion. Delphoxnote , a witch-based Pokémon, is based on a fox, while Incineroar, a Pokémon with a heavily macho look, is based on a tiger. Double subverted with Delphox, as its gender ratio is seven males to one female like all Starters.

    Webcomics 

    Western Animation 
  • Another inversion: Blue's Clues. Blue, Green Puppy, and Magenta are female dogs and Periwinkle is a male cat.
  • Inversion: French cartoon Clémentine has a male cat and a female dog who is in love with him.
  • Captain Cuddlepuss and Trixie in Creature Comforts.
  • Inverted in an episode of Earthworm Jim in which Evil the Cat gains a girlfriend named Malice the Dog.
  • Inversion: In The Get Along Gang, Dotty is a female dog and Zipper is a male cat.
  • The 2021 Apple TV+ preschool series Get Rolling With Otis features a female puppy named "Polly" while Mama Cat's kittens are mostly male (notably Frisky the Kitten).
  • Inversion: Waffles and Chainsaw from Goof Troop are a male cat and a female dog respectively.
  • Little Princess: Averted. Both Scruff the dog and Puss the cat are male.
  • Inverted: Martha from Martha Speaks is a female dog owned by Helen, and Nelson is a male cat owned by Ronald. While some male dogs (like Helen's other dog Skits, Kazuo's dog Pops and Mrs Clusky's dog Francois) exist, there do not seem to be any female cats in the series.
  • Bella the female puppy and Figaro and Mr. Pettibone the two male kittens in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
  • Tom the cat and Nellie the dog in Peep and the Big Wide World
  • Rhyme Time Town: Subverted with the two main characters, Daisy is a female dog and Cole is a male cat.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): Inverted with the siblings Alopex and Takeshi. Alopex was mutated into a humanoid fox while Takeshi was mutated into the humanoid tiger known as Tiger Claw.

     Other  
  • Some breeds of dog are more readily assumed to be female than others, particularly if they're delicately-built or elaborately groomed (e.g. poodles, Salukis, Afghans). Very large cat breeds, such as Maine coons, may be mistaken for male purely on account of their bulk, though this side of the inversion is less prevalent than the dog side of it.
  • "Cat" can be a slang term for a young man like "chick" (or "bird" if you're British) is for a young woman, though using it nowadays would make you sound like a retro-beatnik.
  • Due to the popularity of cats on the internet, it's becoming less common for cats to be automatically portrayed as female, at least on the internet itself. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the revival in their popularity is particularly noticeable among the young adult male demographic (arguably having been started by Caturday and lolcats on 4chan, which was once very male-dominated), and often focuses on the idiosyncratic personalities of cats rather than their cuteness. As a result, this demographic seems to be more likely to be able to relate to the cats and portray them as little furry versions of themselves. For examples of this, see the viral video of the cats playing pattycake with a voiceover by two young men, and innumerable other "translations" of cat videos that seem to give the cat a male voice most of the time. No such inversion seems to have taken place with dogs and women, however.
    • Not in the exact same way, at least. But the stereotype of women having cute little dogs (such as poodles or chihuahuas) is actually relatively recent; most young single women used to go for cats before the modern idea of a small "purse dog" became popular. In the same ways young internet-dwelling men have lessened the focus on a cat's cuteness in favour of its odd habits, stylish young women focus less on the idea of a dog as a protector or working man's animal in favour of treating it as the "baby" in the family.
  • "Bitch", originally the term for a female canine, is a common generic English insult for a female, while "pussy", a shortening of "pussycat", is an insult for a cowardly male.
  • In the 2000s, in British slang "dog" was often used as an insulting term to mean "an ugly woman", sometimes it was even noted that in contrast, comparing a woman to a cat could be complimenting her, saying she's attractive! It was invoked in SM:TV Live comedy sketches where Cat Deeley played Cat The Dog (wearing a large, permed wig, spectacles, and false stick-out teeth).
  • In French (and other Romance languages), the words for "cat" and "dog" are both grammatically masculine (chat and chien); in Russian they are both feminine (koshka and sobaka).

 
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Alternative Title(s): Feline Female, All Dogs Are Male, Male Mutt

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