Spoilers Picard's Dog.

Not part of the topic, but I was really really really glad that the dog wasn't ripping the throat out of.one of the Roumlans to save Picard I have no doubt Stewart was insistent on that.

I like to imagine it was cowering underneath a bed

 

The dog actually has an emergency transporter beacon to activate.

 

CBS presents Star Trek Paw Directive starring Number One.

 

@The Wormhole , you left me laughing with that script!

 

I'm now imaging a Paw Patrol style show with Number One, Porthos, Butler (Kirk's dog from Generations) and Molly (Janeway's dog from Caretaker) wearing the same Starfleet uniforms as their owners.

 

Funny enough I almost called it Star Trek Paw Patrol.

 

Isis looks upon all this with feline disdain

 

So we'll give her a spin-off with Spot and umm...that cat O'Brien took from the guy he hung out with when he was undercover with the Orion Syndicate.

There actually aren't very man cats in this franchise, are there?

 

then a spinoff of a spinoff about Tpol and Sock's Sehlats. Throw in the one that tried to eat Archer for good measure

 

Be sure to retcon in a separate sehlat owned by Michael Burnham. Just to troll the haters.

 

But.. Gene's Vision! The only pet's in gene's vision were yeomen!

 

"That's not real Star Trek!"
-- M'Ress

 

Isis (actually a shapeshifting alien agent), Neelix (Barclay's cat), and Patches (Jeremy Aster's cat) are the only three named cats I found on Memory Alpha. So, 5 cats vs. 15 dogs is quite the disparity. But there are 11 unnamed dogs vs. 36 unnamed cats (mostly mentioned, but many seen) in Trek canon, so it seems cats are well-represented, but take more of a backstage role. We never saw any other cat on the Enterprise than Spot until Genesis mentioned that there were 12 uncastrated male toms apparently roaming through the corridors.

 

Which is actually a much better name for the dog. "Here Q! Come here boy!"

 

Do we think the Enterprise had mice? This topic needs its own thread.

 

Clearly we need to petition better representation for cats in Star Trek's supposedly inclusive and woke future.

 

Regula One had rats. Probably transported over with bulk supplies.

 

Data in Phantasms:

We know that dogs live on the Enterprise (the litter of puppies from "The Child" and the lost puppy from "Lower Decks"), so this really only indicates to me that Spot (an earlier, male Spot, as I'm a fan of the multi-Spot theory) in early Season 7 was not allowed outside of Data's quarters. The next Spot, perhaps, was, in order to give her these life experiences she needed. Otherwise, Data's cats must've been going insane from boredom.

Maybe Data used second officer's privilege to release several stray cats in the corridors so Spot had someone to play with. Releasing "rodentia" would be a logical course of action to keep the cats occupied and placate their predatory desires.

 

Or since it was a science station, maybe they were specimens for experiments, that got loose after Khan ransacked the place.