I think LW has an important long-term choice to make. It seems like their BF is adamantly anti-pet, and LW desperately wants to be a cat person - Harriette assumes this is an obvious win in favor of BF, but I would argue that "will never accept a pet in the home" is a reasonable dealbreaker for people who love pets. It doesn't mean a person who doesn't want pets is a bad person, but it may well make them incompatible in the long term with someone who *does* want a pet.

Is LW - who loves animals so much they volunteer with them every weekend - willing to let this guy bar LW from adopting any animals, forever? That sounds like a recipe for seething resentment to me. LW might instead want to consider breaking up with this dude and making "loves cats and can deal with skittish rescues" a requirement for future dating.