ANYONE who has lost a beloved pet knows the heartrending grief that brings – and how you would do anything to bring them back.
But, while cloning is currently illegal in the UK, an increasing number of British animal lovers are banking samples of their furry friends in high tech laboratories ready for a potential rebirth – and spending thousands in the process.
Labs can collect and store the cells that allow animals to be cloned in the US and then imported back here.
A British couple, Laura Jacques and Richard Remde from Silsden, West Yorks, were among the first to clone a pet when their boxer Dylan died back in 2015.
Dad of two Richard saw how heartbroken Laura was so put the dog in the freezer to preserve his remains until they could bury him at their new house.
He called Hwang Woo-suka pioneering South Korean veterinarian researcher who successfully cloned the first dog, Snuppy, in 2005.
The lab told him it couldn’t be done because Dylan had been dead for two weeks but undeterred, Richard persuaded them to try – in exchange for a hefty $10,000 fee.
Richard paid a retired vet to collect the skin samples and flew to South Korea to hand them over personally. To the astonishment of the scientific community, the lab eventually created two clones, Shadow and Chance.
And a British magician has got in on the act too.
John Van Der Put, who performs as Piff the Magic Dragon at The Flamingo in Las Vegas, is already working with three cloned offspring of his late sidekick, a chihuahua named Mr Piffles.
The first dead ringer, named Fortune “because he cost me a fortune” quickly replaced his dad who had been by his master’s side on stage for 15 years.
Now John, who appeared in America’s Got Talent in 2015, has splashed out another £50,000 on two more identical dogs, meaning he can double his work opportunities and reduce the amount of travel for each pooch.
Scientists used genetic samples taken from Mr Piffles to create twins Fival and Six Pack, later born via a surrogate.
John said: “It is not exactly the same as having Piffles on stage, but he lives on in these three dogs.
“I knew I couldn’t make Piffles live forever so I tried the cloning route. It has been incredible.
“They all look just like Piffles, seem to have adopted his natural showbiz cool and essence, but are still their own little characters.
“After the success of the first we wanted Fortune to have an understudy and didn’t want to have him do every single show himself and have to travel so much.
We’ve made Vegas history with the first cloned entertainer on the Strip
John Van Der Put
“So we cloned again for $60,000, and got twins. I saved money and got double the work force.”
In America, many social media influencers are now giving their dog a clone – creating identical replicas of the original pet in order to keep their lucrative businesses booming.
Courtney Udvar-Hazy cloned her canine Willow after the profitable pooch was hit by a car four years ago.
She had built a money-spinning brand, Wander With Willow, which has 2.5m followers on TikTok and now lives on thanks to Phoenix, one of six identical looking clones produced from Willow’s skin tissue.
Courtney, a 32-year-old photographer from California, monetises her account with sponsorship and a range of merchandise including $80 hoodies and dog friendly travel guides.
But she admits she had been targeted by trolls, explaining: “I get a lot of crap about cloning – people say I have zombie dogs, or they call me a crazy rich girl. It was hurtful to me at first.”
Courtney used the Texas-based cloning company ViaGen – which has famously duplicated dogs for Hollywood A-listers including Paris Hilton, Tom Brady and Barbra Streisand.
She added: “Willow was like my child, my everything. I would have done anything just to have her bloodline and her legacy to continue.
“Completely different animal, completely different soul, completely different personality, but genetically identical.”
Another US influencer, Kelly Anderson, cloned her cat Chai when she died, and continues to run a monetised Instagram account with Belle, a genetically engineered clone born via a surrogate mother.
Dog trainer Kelly, 35, from Austin, explained: “I was very distraught the day she died. I lost about 20,000 followers on Instagram.
“I built my followers up from scratch and when Chai died, things started crumbling. I definitely dropped off the face of the earth.”
It took four years and $25,000 to get a successful clone, but now she is back in business.
“Some people might buy a car, I bought a clone,” she said.
“People have problems with how much money it is. But no one really should be telling other people how to spend their own money.”
Cloning a dog costs $50,000, while a cat is $35,000 and it’s $85,000 for a horse.
People say I have zombie dogs, or they call me a crazy rich girl. It was hurtful to me at first
Courtney Udvar-Hazy
Melain Rodriguez from ViaGen explained: “There are a handful of our clients that have a social media presence, that’s definitely going to grow.”
The cloning process starts with a small skin sample taken from the original animal, ideally when it’s alive, and millions of cells are grown from the tissue.
Scientists then extract the DNA and insert it into a donor egg. An electric pulse is applied to persuade the cell to begin dividing.
The resulting embryo is implanted into a surrogate mother who will gestate, give birth and nurse the puppy or kitten until it is weaned.
Surrogates typically have one or two litters before they are spayed and adopted.
Zombie dogs
Industry figures say thousands of pet owners have now banked samples of tissue from beloved cats and dogs in the UK, preserving the option to create clones in the future.
Gemini Genetics in Shropshire is currently holding more than 6,000 DNA samples, and says interest in the process is growing fast.
Manager Lucy Morgan said: “If an animal has died, or an owner knows the end is approaching, a vet can take a skin sample. We keep them until the owner decides what to do.”
Meanwhile, ViaGen even has a pet influencer partner, tinker bellsa Maltese mix with more than 800,000 social media followers – and the blue tick of a certified celebrity.
Tinkerbelle has a podcast, YouTube channel, and sells branded beanies, bags and water bottles.
The account @partywithbrucewaynewhich has almost 55,000 Instagram followers, features four cloned chihuahuas who appear alongside the original, Bruce.
Smaller petfluencer accounts like @clash_of_the_clones, @the_peanut_clonesand @baxter_the_cloneopenly tout the fact that the dogs on display are genetic replicas.
Another ViaGen client is the former First Lady of Iceland Dorrit Moussaieff who lives in London with the clone of her dog Samur.
Before her beloved German Shepherd and Icelandic Sheepdog cross died in 2019, a vet collected his blood and skin cells which were couriered to the Texas laboratory.
The clone Samson was born later that year, to her delight.
Dorrit said: “I loved this animal so much that it made no sense not doing it. Imagine if you had a child and your child had sadly had an accident or passed away.
It’s much less expensive than having children
Dorrit Moussaieff
“If you particularly loved that child – I don’t have any children – or I particularly loved that dog, why wouldn’t I have another one?
“That dog gave me more pleasure and more comfort in my life than anything else put together.”
But owners wanting their pet to live on are warned not to expect an exact duplicate – coat markings and colouring may not match the original, particularly in mixed breeds.
They are also advised that personalities will vary, since temperament and behaviour is shaped by environment and training more than DNA.
American football star Tom Brady revealed earlier this month that his dog Junie is a clone of Lua, his pit-bull that died in 2023.
Singer Barbra Streisand used cells from her cherished dog Sammie, who died in 2017, to produce two exact copies called Miss Scarlet and Miss Violet – and posted photos of them sitting next to Sammie’s grave.
When Paris Hilton lost her chihuahua, Diamond Baby, she commissioned two genetically identical replacements: Diamond and Baby. She is now an investor in ViaGen, along with Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson.
ViaGen was recently acquired by Colossal Biosciences, best known for its ambitions to revive extinct species including the mammoth and dodo.
The company uses technologies that were first developed in the 1990s at the Roslin Institute in Scotland, where researchers produced Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal.
For John – who is teaming up with legendary magician Penn Jillette for a UK nationwide tour next summer – the clones of his performing pooch are a fitting tribute to the original.
“Having the boys is not a bad way for us to honour Piffles, because sadly in life you cannot cheat the inevitable,” he says.
“These clones have brought something back. It’s unbelievable what science can achieve.
“While he’s playing at the dog park in heaven there is a little piece of Piffles still entertaining here on earth.
“We’ve made Vegas history with the first cloned entertainer on the Strip.”
But animal welfare charities have expressed concerns about the practice.
RSPCA’s Penny Hawkins said: “There’s so much more to an animal than their DNA.
“There are serious ethical and welfare concerns around cloning technology, potentially requiring procedures that cause pain and distress, with high failure and mortality rates; and animals frequently suffer physical ailments such as tumours, pneumonia and abnormal growth patterns.”
Elisa Allen from PETA added: “Millions of wonderful, adoptable dogs and cats are languishing in animal shelters or dying in terrifying ways after being abandoned, while cloning adds to the homeless-animal overpopulation crisis.
“PETA encourages anyone looking to bring another animal companion into their life to adopt instead of fuelling this cruel money-making fad.”