Same as college most don't keep pets in the barracks and tend to feel a bit bad about getting one when you might have to leave for month-long FTX or year long deployment, and you're more likely to accidentally acquire a cat, so married troops often have pets because they've got kids but most others don't. Dogs don't tend to wander in, cats do, we had a little lame kitten we adopted downrange, he used to sleep in our freezer (the pump in the rear stayed warm so he'd crawl in there) and we'd feed him lunch meat. There were probably about two dozens of us actively involved in spoiling that little guy, and it was a mixed bag including my artillery unit and our neighboring camp of Rangers and Secret Squirrels, I know the CB's had a pair of kittens and the SigCo had one and I'm pretty sure most of the infantry forward outposts had a cat or two as well. We fed the other cats too but they was grown up and we'd have to run them off so they didn't try to take Charlie's food, him being little and gimpy. If it had been puppy I'm sure we'd have done the same thing though, lot of farmboys in the service and they all tend to have had a lot of cats and dogs as kids. Besides, cats kill rats and mice and even camel spiders. The cleanest camp starts attracting them in short order. Also, cats and small dogs are easier to transport or keep in barracks or apartments.