Can you help? This is a bit long, sorry.. We've just lost our most favourite, wonderful cat, who was a real personality and DS' best friend, staying on his bed in the evenings, sitting in the bathroom with him while he bathed, and generally doing service above and beyond the normal cat duties. We had to put him to sleep a day after finding out he had a huge tumour, we were all devastated, especially DH who took it particularly badly - he has a history of being completely distraught on losing family pets, and this was the first pet we'd had to make "the" decision about. In fact I made the decision, and virtually bullied DH into doing the right thing, so I felt like a cat murderer, hastening his demise.
Anyway, it's now 10 days later, we still have 2 cats, about 16 and 12 (they were strays when we got them 11 years ago). They're "typical" cats - like their lap time but are essentially self sufficient and don't like DS much at all. DS is terribly lonely in the evenings.
I've been looking into different breeds of cat, thinking that we might need to "go pedigree" to be more likely to guarantee a more friendly personality, and I've come across ragdolls. I've spoken to a couple of breeders and they sound ideal. As "luck" would have it, one breeder is retiring and so is selling her queens, so we could get a 3 year old gorgeous girl, for half the price of a kitten. They've about 2 hrs drive from us, which is a trek, but DH refuses point blank even to go and see them, still less to countenance getting another cat until our existing two are dead, saying it's not fair on them to bring in another cat. I'm home most days, and would be more than happy to referee the initial stages : it seems to me that it's infinitely less invasive than bringing in a kitten, and in any even from the way he's talking, we won't even be doing that, and will (eventually) have a 6 month cat free period while we wait for a litter and then fork out a fortune...
I am not happy about this, and have told DH he is being selfish, as he has unilaterally vetoed any progress on this, while DS and I, who are home far more than he is, and who are affected far more, aren't being considered. I do appreciate that he has a (really really tiny) point about bringing in a new cat to a long-term cat household - the two remaining cats never really got on with the one who died and either tried to ambush him or to ignore him, but surely a 3 yr old cat from a household full of cats would react better than a kitten, and I am NOT waiting until they all fall off the perch - DH will go first [mutinous stare...]
Any ideas?