We lost Nika, our spiritual inspiration and irreplaceable canine family member, in November of 2019. Almost immediately, my wife decided that our cat, Bébert, was suffering acute loneliness from the loss. Nika and Bébert had merely coexisted, but I didn't dissuade my wife from projecting our own sense of emptiness upon the seemingly indifferent cat. By the end of December we would welcome an additional family member into our household.