How Do You Get A New Cat After Losing The Most Perfect One?

[1 bruce 1]

I am grieving the loss of my cat and certainly am not ready for another one now, but I had the coolest cat ever. He is gone now. I cannot get gim back. Do I ever get another cat? I should mention I already have another cat but I never connected with him the way I did with the boy I lost. I got him 2nd bc I wanted Herman (my first boy) to have company. My mind is just all over the place after putting down Herman.

Without reading ahead...
You don't replace them, but you make room in your life for a new friend. You help another cat or support a responsible, thoughtful breeder aiming for producing good, healthy, sound kittens, and you wing it.
With dogs, or cats, it's the same with us. We don't replace, we open our hearts further to others. We have a few cats here right now that pale in comparison (no offense to these cats, but they do) in loving behavior and personality compared to a few we've lost in the past. We lost an "all personality" cat years ago and we have some now that we treasure for that, but a few of them are very stand-offish. I love a cuddly cat, but I also have grown to really appreciate and really, REALLY like being around these creatures that sleep on my bed, eat the food I give them, but have this mysterious essence about them that I'll never understand. It's the closest I'll ever get to living with a wild creature, and I kind of like their independence and aloofness in their own right.
With all else, non-cuddle cats can sometimes bond with us when their only playmate/companion (in cat form) is no longer with us in this physical form. We've had non-cuddly animals turn into leeches when their favorite companion animal passes away, they know their friend is no longer here and attach themselves to us. I'm not saying this will happen with your cat, but stranger things HAVE happened and this can take weeks or months to notice.
Hang out with your current cat. Talk to him. Play with him, make sure he sees you deliver food to him. Spend time in the same room/general area as he is and read/hang out on the internet/etc., something quiet, and just enjoy his presence.
I had a female cat that was never a cuddler, never a lap cat and kind of ignored me in my youth. One day I just drug her into my lap and gently held her there. She was tense, but then un-tensed, and eventually settled into purring/kneading and from then on it was impossible to pry her out of my lap no matter what I was doing. She was like a barnacle with myself as her gravitational pull!
I can't advise you on getting another cat, but if it's something you like (a multi cat household), consider a well reared kitten that has had lots of handling from humans or a very outgoing, confident adult that speaks good "cat" and would do well with your current pal. A good cat rescue or shelter that assesses their personalities will be a big help.

 

[Etarre]

I'm so sorry that you lost your perfect cat. It's so hard.

I had a lot of the same questions when my beloved Gwenkitty died last November. Ultimately, the apartment was just too quiet without her, and it was depressing to come home without a cat to greet me, and I wanted another cat really quickly. My husband was slower to come around, but let me make the decision about when to look for another cat.

I did feel guilty about wanting a new cat, as if I were 'replacing' Gwen, but in the end I needed to do it, and our schedules allowed some extra time to make a new cat comfortable over the holidays, so we went to a big cat adoption fair with an empty carrier and an open mind.

I wasn't sure that I was ready to get a cat, and I knew that I didn't want one that reminded me specifically of Gwen in her looks, but I did want one that I connected with. I figured that if I didn't connect with any of the cats there, it meant I wasn't ready.

Long story short(er), there was a little adolescent dilute tortie there who had sad, intelligent eyes that just seemed to be begging me to take her home. So we did, and she became our Juniper.

Juniper is very different from Gwen in her overall temperament and energy, which I think has really helped us to learn to love her as her own individual being. And she makes us laugh daily, which is so healing. So we've found that we can miss Gwen terribly and love Juniper all at the same time.

I will say that my husband wasn't quite ready for Juniper when we got her, and the transition was tougher for him because of it. But he let me do it on my timetable, for which I'll always be really grateful. So trust yourself and your instincts about when your'e ready, and what cat is the right cat for you.

 

[LTS3]

You don't replace them, but you make room in your life for a new friend.

Any pet that comes into your life in the future is just a new friend, not a replacement

Don't let family, friends, co-workers, etc push you into getting a new cat right away or make you feel bad or guilty in any way. Ignore anyone who says that it "was just a cat" and to get over it. You will know when you a ready to get a new cat. It may be tomorrow, next week, or not for several years.

It was nearly a year after my cat passed before I even started thinking of a new one. I browsed on Petfinder and the local shelter web sites but nothing caught my eye. I don't recall how it happened but someone on another cat board mentioned her newest litter of Abyssinians. For some reason I just knew that was the breed my new cat would be. I found an breeder who had a new litter coming up and put a deposit in after lengthy back and forth questions. My new Aby kitten arrived exactly one year and to the exact hour after my previous cat passed away. I really believe my previous cat had a paw in sending me this particular kitten on that particular date 3 months later I ended up adopting a similar age kitten from a local rescue to keep up with my Aby's zoomies.

You can always "test the waters" by fostering for a local shelter. Sometimes the next cat happens to come along that way ("failed fosters").