He genuinely has no idea how hard a cat would be to train, but in most species of 'dog' (cosmically a lot of worlds have some kind of hound that helps out people) he knew were pretty easy to train.

"I mostly wanted to keep us fed but I'm figurin' out I might be able to get as good as I was with it. I'm gettin' way better with the growin' and controllin'." And maybe, given a few more months, he can be as good as he was with it.

"Maybe I'd work pretty well with you if'n a fight came up." Some 'combined power' shit of some kind.