While it's not the most scientific method, a visual comparison of the average mix breed house cat with its closest wild relatives [0] [1] you can see how little the cat really has been "domesticated".
A few domesticated animals like sheep and pigs go feral and can survive in limited environments (like on islands without predators). Horses are probably the most successful at that with the descendants of domesticated horses roaming central North America. (Maybe not coincidentally, horses are also one of the most recently domesticated species.) Dogs have had some luck in ecological niches without existing large predators (like in Australia). So have rabbits in niches without small herbivore mammals.
But none of them have had the success of the cat; they survive in the wild on their own, from Iceland, to the Auckland Islands, and everywhere in between.
retrac•1m ago
A few domesticated animals like sheep and pigs go feral and can survive in limited environments (like on islands without predators). Horses are probably the most successful at that with the descendants of domesticated horses roaming central North America. (Maybe not coincidentally, horses are also one of the most recently domesticated species.) Dogs have had some luck in ecological niches without existing large predators (like in Australia). So have rabbits in niches without small herbivore mammals.
But none of them have had the success of the cat; they survive in the wild on their own, from Iceland, to the Auckland Islands, and everywhere in between.
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Southern...
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Felis_si...