In Virginia, stealing a dog is considered a felony, but stealing a cat is a misdemeanor. Proposed law HB334 would make the two crimes equal, but some folks have brought up that cats are more independent and tend to wander off and get informally adopted by other families. The existing law also applies to the theft of a horse, pony, mules, cow, steer, bull or calf. Seems that farmers didn’t mind their cats disappearing when this first came on the books.