Question

An animal shelter houses only cats and dogs, there are 25% more cats these dogs. If there are 40 cats, how many dogs are there, and how many animals are there in total?

Answer 1

Answer:

There are 32 dogs and 72 animals in total.  

Step-by-step explanation:

In order to find the amount of dogs, you need to set up an equation to solve for the missing variable.  Let 'c' be the amount of cats and 'd' be the amount of dogs.  We know that there are 40 cats, so c = 40.  We also know that there are 25% more cats than dogs, so we can form an equation to express this difference:  1.25d = c, indicating that the number of cats is equal to the total number of dogs, plus an additional 25%.  Since we know c = 40, we can set our second equation equal to 40:  1.25d = 40.  Using inverse operations, we divide both sides by 1.25 to get d = 32.  So, d + c, or 32 + 40 = 72 total animals.