Many romance languages have both; for instance, in Catalan “gos” / “gossa”, “gat” / “gata”, in Spanish, “perro” / “perra”, “gato” / “gata”, or in French “chien” / “chienne”, “chat” / “chatte”.
In general the default for cats and dogs is the male form, though it can be ambiguous between male and don’t know / don’t care.
For instance if you saw a random unidentified cat you could say you saw “un gat / gato / chat”, and it would be impossible to tell whether you were referring to a male cat or a cat of unknown gender (while if you used the female form it’d be unambiguous).
Romance languages really could use a neutral form, but “gat@”, “gat*”, or “gatx” just don’t work when you try to figure out how to say them out loud, and using the female form for neutral just moves the problem to the other side.
Many romance languages have both; for instance, in Catalan “gos” / “gossa”, “gat” / “gata”, in Spanish, “perro” / “perra”, “gato” / “gata”, or in French “chien” / “chienne”, “chat” / “chatte”.
See my other comment, the one with the emoji: yes, words like “tomcat” and “bitch” exist, but which is used for the species?
In general the default for cats and dogs is the male form, though it can be ambiguous between male and don’t know / don’t care.
For instance if you saw a random unidentified cat you could say you saw “un gat / gato / chat”, and it would be impossible to tell whether you were referring to a male cat or a cat of unknown gender (while if you used the female form it’d be unambiguous).
Romance languages really could use a neutral form, but “gat@”, “gat*”, or “gatx” just don’t work when you try to figure out how to say them out loud, and using the female form for neutral just moves the problem to the other side.