{"id":1780001,"date":"2026-02-19T15:46:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1780001"},"modified":"2026-02-19T15:46:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:46:00","slug":"i-could-have-a-piece-of-him-come-back-the-murky-ethics-of-pet-cloning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1780001","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I could have a piece of him come back\u2019: The murky ethics of pet cloning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-443-2609-1739\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/8\/1438043.jpeg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"main-article longread\">\n<div class=\"article-main-content article-wrapper has-media-but-its-an-image\" data-status=\"loaded\" data-primary-article=\"true\" data-url=\"\/life-culture\/article\/69685\/1\/cloned-pets-fear-of-death-petfluencers-death-grief-mortality-cats-dogs\" data-article-id=\"69685\">\n<header class=\"article-header has-portrait-image no-media\">\n<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.87\" data-template=\"Longread Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Belle\" class=\"img\" height=\"3000\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1400\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/8\/1438043.jpeg\" width=\"2611\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">Photo courtesy of <span class=\"nowrap\">Kelly Anderson<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-02-19T15:46:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"19 February 2026\"><span class=\"month\">DateInMeta<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"19\">19,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/feature\">Feature<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>\u2018I could have a piece of him come back\u2019: The murky ethics of <span class=\"nowrap\">pet cloning<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>As celebrities clone their pets and cloned petfluencers multiply online, the growing practice reflects our evolving relationship <span class=\"nowrap\">with mortality<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-02-19T15:46:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"19 February 2026\"><span class=\"month\">February<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"19\">19,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/feature\">Feature<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-02-19T15:46:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"19 February 2026\"><span class=\"month\">February<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"19\">19,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/laurapitcher\">Laura Pitcher<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>When Venessa Johnson, who\u2019s based in Los Angeles, lost her 17-year-old dog, Oliver, in 2024, she started Googling how to process the loss of a pet. In between the articles on grief, there was one that popped up on pet cloning. \u201cIt felt like a lifeline,\u201d she says. \u201cThis didn\u2019t have to be finite. I could have a piece of him come back to me.\u201d She spoke to someone at ViaGen, the leading pet cloning company in the US, who told her she had five days to preserve Oliver\u2019s DNA, and that, since he\u2019d already been frozen, there was less than a 10 per cent chance of the process working. Still, that was enough for Johnson. Four days after he passed, she banked his DNA with ViaGen. Less than a year and $50,000 later, her cloned puppy, Ollie, was born.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While human cloning is illegal in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.geneticsandsociety.org\/internal-content\/human-cloning-policies\"><span>at least 46 countries<\/span><\/a><span>, including the US, celebrities like Tom Brady, Barbra Streisand, Simon Cowell and Paris Hilton have all cloned their pets. It\u2019s not exactly mainstream \u2013 the price point keeps it that way \u2013 but there is a growing number of cloned pets being posted on TikTok and Instagram, blissfully unaware that they are part of a heated debate on the ethics of cloning (they don\u2019t even know they are clones). In the comments, people ask owners if they love the clone as much as the original. How much was it? Or, why didn\u2019t they adopt from a shelter instead? As pet cloning gets more attention and becomes popularised in some circles, at least, what does the growing practice say about our own relationship with mortality?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Belle, who goes by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@clonekitty?lang=en\"><span>Clone Kitty<\/span><\/a><span> online, is a cloned pet influencer with over 200 thousand followers across social media. Her owner, Kelly Anderson, also used ViaGen to create a clone of what she calls her \u201csoul pet\u201d, Chai. \u201cI use the term soul pet a lot, but I don\u2019t think even that does it justice, because it was an incredible connection that I can\u2019t really put into words,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen Chai passed at five years old, I felt like I was robbed of time.\u201d She hadn\u2019t considered cloning Chai while she was still alive, but her roommate had mentioned that there was a pet cloning facility 30 minutes away from them in Austin, Texas. She thought nothing of it at the time. Then, Chai passed in 2017, and she remembered the conversation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-tiktok\" data-id=\"7579797492175310111\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>\u201cThe vet had frozen her body overnight in preparation to send her to the crematorium,\u201d says Anderson. \u201cI called them first thing in the morning and said, \u2018Hold that thought, let\u2019s clone\u2019.\u201d She says she wasn\u2019t trying to bring Chai back to life \u2013 she wanted to carry on a piece of Chai with Belle. It cost her $25,000 (it costs double now), which she had to take out a loan for, and it took her five years to pay off the money. Four years later, Belle was finally born. It was an emotionally charged moment. \u201cI hadn\u2019t seen baby Chai since 2011, so there was a big separation in my head,\u201d she says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t seeing Chai again, I was seeing a new kitten, and I wanted there to be meaning behind her, without expecting her to be something she wasn\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Even as someone who posts her cloned pet, Anderson doesn\u2019t believe that cloning is for everyone. \u201cGetting another Ragdoll felt more like a replacement in my head than cloning her, which was grief logic,\u201d she says. \u201cCloning felt more poetic, like a continuation of her story. But if you are looking for a copy-paste sci-fi idea of cloning, don\u2019t clone.\u201d It\u2019s nature versus nurture playing out in real time: Belle\u2019s temperament is, according to Anderson, the same as Chai\u2019s, although her personality is different because their early years were. Still, some moments bring back glimmers of memories with Chai. \u201cShe would sleep pressed up against my back, and every once in a while, I\u2019ll wake up to Belle sleeping with me in the same way,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>\u201cGetting another Ragdoll felt more like a replacement in my head than cloning her, which was grief logic. Cloning felt more poetic, like a continuation of her story. But if you are looking for a copy-paste sci-fi idea of cloning, don\u2019t clone\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>ViaGen frames pet cloning as a preservation of bonds; a story of second-chances where \u201clove meets science\u201d. The cloning process, as outlined on the website, reads simple enough: after genetically preserving your pet (which is recommended to do while they are still alive), ViaGen fuses one of these preserved cells with the egg of a donor female dog, \u201cforming an embryo that grows naturally\u201d. This embryo is then transferred to a surrogate mother, and your pet\u2019s \u201cgenetic twin\u201d is born. \u201cThis is not just a similar dog in spirit, but a true biological match born later with the same DNA,\u201d <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/viagenpets.com\/dogs\/\"><span>it reads<\/span><\/a><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>With talk of legacy, \u201chealthy\u201d surrogate mothers, the health benefits (including living longer) of the human-dog connection and videos of puppies running through green fields, pet cloning is gaining popularity in the same way that biohacking and the longevity movement are. In a culture obsessed with immortalising ourselves online and attempting to hack our biological clock, we expect our pets to be as worried as us about mortality. Only by spending any amount of time with any animal will you know they are far better than us at living in the moment. Also, we\u2019re already far from securing a standard quality of life for all the animals that already exist with us on earth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Lindsay Marshall, an animal science expert with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.humaneworld.org\/en\"><span>Humane World for Animals<\/span><\/a><span>, points to the first known cloned dog, an Afghan hound called Snuppy in South Korea, as an example of the number of (often undiscussed) animals in the cloning process. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/3822573\/snuppy\/\"><span>It took 1,095 extracted eggs and 123 surrogates to birth Snuppy in 2005<\/span><\/a><span>, who has since died of cancer. In modern-day pet cloning facilities, Marshall says little is known about the donor animals and surrogate mothers who are bred and kept as laboratory animals. \u201cCloning a pet is a very human-centric approach because you\u2019re not considering the value of the animals that are <\/span><span>involved,\u201d she says. \u201cAlso, the efficiency of cloning is so ridiculously low.\u201d In a 2022 study of 1,000 cloned dogs, scientists found that about <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/11\/13\/learning\/would-you-clone-your-pet.html\"><span>two per cent of cloning attempts led to a living puppy<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-tiktok\" data-id=\"7322685500211481899\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>We do live in a human-centric society, where animals, at least in the US and many other countries, are simply considered property. There is an emerging conversation about animal sentience happening across the world, but it\u2019s still an uphill battle: only about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ourcommons.ca\/petitions\/en\/Petition\/Details?Petition=e-6955\">32 countries formally recognise non-human animal sentience<\/a>, and animal protection remains low globally. \u201cWhat does it mean for us to take an individual that has the capacity for subjective experience and agency and simply mass-produce them [through cloning]?\u201d says Philip Tedeschi, the co-director of The Institute for Animal Sentience and Protection. \u201cI don&#8217;t think that conversation is really being had.\u201d As scientists rush to clone endangered species for de-extinction, Tedeschi fears we may become careless with the extinction of biodiversity on the planet today, believing that, somewhere down the road, we can just bring everything back to life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Animal rights issues aside, and there are plenty of them, the rise of pet cloning reflects the consumer-driven lens that\u2019s applied across all facets of modern life, including our relationships. \u201c<\/span><span>One of the reasons our relationships are meaningful is because they\u2019re not forever,\u201d says <\/span><span>Tedeschi. \u201cThey are not <\/span><span>reproducible.\u201d In Western culture, death has become something to throw the latest science at. Our structural systems simultaneously beget and denounce grief <\/span><span>\u2013<\/span><span> it\u2019s to be avoided rather than honoured. If grief is love with nowhere to go, as it is so often quoted, it\u2019s little surprise that this is being marketed back to people in the form of pet cloning. \u201cPet grief is often minimised. After <\/span><span>Oliver died, p<\/span><span>eople would text me asking to get a drink when I couldn\u2019t even shower or get off the couch,\u201d says <\/span><span>Johnson. \u201cLosing him felt as hard as when I lost my grandparents. He meant that much to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>\u201cOne of the reasons our relationships are meaningful is because they\u2019re not forever. They are not reproducible\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>There\u2019s another factor to consider when thinking about what cloned pets say about the state of humanity (and the world): the mere fact of bringing a living being into this world with the expectation of it replacing someone else. It\u2019s a philosophical dilemma, and one that Samuel Gorovitz, professor of philosophy at Syracuse University, says is worth weighing the benefits with who the burden of harm falls on, as he does with any ethical choice. \u201cIf the goal is to get the pet you loved back, there\u2019s not a lot of benefits because you will never get the pet you lost, and if you are disappointed in interacting with that pet, there\u2019s a good chance it will know it in some way,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of potential for harm and, even if the benefits did exceed the harm, that\u2019s not good enough if the benefits go to the already privileged people and the harm is inflicted on those already disadvantaged.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>You could say cloned pets are just pets, so who cares? But our relationship with the advancing technology involved in genetic engineering lends itself to other moral conversations, like creating \u201cdesigner babies\u201d or bringing those obsessed with immortality \u201cback to life\u201d. More so, how we treat the non-humans in our natural ecosystem reflects how we view ourselves in relationship to the world. Nothing is forever, no one is replaceable, and loss is inevitable. The beauty of sharing a life with people and animals is that it is finite. No matter how hard we try to fight it, we can\u2019t update other living beings (or ourselves) like the latest iPhone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Johnson doesn\u2019t exactly regret getting Ollie, but she does now see the beauty in having that one special, impermanent relationship. Of having closure. \u201cSome days, I wish I had just let myself go through the grieving process and not be so scared of it,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve never dealt with death very well, and now, in a way, I\u2019m going to have to go through the process of losing Oliver twice.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-series header article-series tags\"><span class=\"heading\">More on these topics:<\/span><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/feature\">Feature<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/animals\">animals<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/technology\">Technology<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/dna\">dna<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/science\">science<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/social-media\">social media<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/pets\">pets<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/death\">Death<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"image-navigation\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/news\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img one\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">News<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/fashion\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img two\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Fashion<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img three\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Music<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img four\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Film &amp; TV<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69685\/1\/cloned-pets-fear-of-death-petfluencers-death-grief-mortality-cats-dogs#features\" class=\"image-navigation__img five\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Features<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img six\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Beauty<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img seven\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Life &amp; Culture<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img eight\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Art &amp; Photography<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>When Venessa Johnson, who\u2019s based in Los Angeles, lost her 17-year-old dog, Oliver, in 2024, she started Googling how to process the loss of a pet. In between the articles on grief, there was one that popped up on pet cloning. \u201cIt felt like a lifeline,\u201d she says. \u201cThis didn\u2019t have to be finite. I could have a piece of him come back to me.\u201d She spoke to someone at ViaGen, the leading pet cloning company in the US, who told her she had five days to preserve Oliver\u2019s DNA, and that, since he\u2019d already been frozen, there was less than a 10 per cent chance of the process working. Still, that was enough for Johnson. Four days after he passed, she banked his DNA with ViaGen. Less than a year and $50,000 later, her cloned puppy, Ollie, was born.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While human cloning is illegal in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.geneticsandsociety.org\/internal-content\/human-cloning-policies\"><span>at least 46 countries<\/span><\/a><span>, including the US, celebrities like Tom Brady, Barbra Streisand, Simon Cowell and Paris Hilton have all cloned their pets. It\u2019s not exactly mainstream \u2013 the price point keeps it that way \u2013 but there is a growing number of cloned pets being posted on TikTok and Instagram, blissfully unaware that they are part of a heated debate on the ethics of cloning (they don\u2019t even know they are clones). In the comments, people ask owners if they love the clone as much as the original. How much was it? Or, why didn\u2019t they adopt from a shelter instead? As pet cloning gets more attention and becomes popularised in some circles, at least, what does the growing practice say about our own relationship with mortality?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Belle, who goes by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@clonekitty?lang=en\"><span>Clone Kitty<\/span><\/a><span> online, is a cloned pet influencer with over 200 thousand followers across social media. Her owner, Kelly Anderson, also used ViaGen to create a clone of what she calls her \u201csoul pet\u201d, Chai. \u201cI use the term soul pet a lot, but I don\u2019t think even that does it justice, because it was an incredible connection that I can\u2019t really put into words,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen Chai passed at five years old, I felt like I was robbed of time.\u201d She hadn\u2019t considered cloning Chai while she was still alive, but her roommate had mentioned that there was a pet cloning facility 30 minutes away from them in Austin, Texas. She thought nothing of it at the time. Then, Chai passed in 2017, and she remembered the conversation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-tiktok\" data-id=\"7579797492175310111\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>\u201cThe vet had frozen her body overnight in preparation to send her to the crematorium,\u201d says Anderson. \u201cI called them first thing in the morning and said, \u2018Hold that thought, let\u2019s clone\u2019.\u201d She says she wasn\u2019t trying to bring Chai back to life \u2013 she wanted to carry on a piece of Chai with Belle. It cost her $25,000 (it costs double now), which she had to take out a loan for, and it took her five years to pay off the money. Four years later, Belle was finally born. It was an emotionally charged moment. \u201cI hadn\u2019t seen baby Chai since 2011, so there was a big separation in my head,\u201d she says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t seeing Chai again, I was seeing a new kitten, and I wanted there to be meaning behind her, without expecting her to be something she wasn\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Even as someone who posts her cloned pet, Anderson doesn\u2019t believe that cloning is for everyone. \u201cGetting another Ragdoll felt more like a replacement in my head than cloning her, which was grief logic,\u201d she says. \u201cCloning felt more poetic, like a continuation of her story. But if you are looking for a copy-paste sci-fi idea of cloning, don\u2019t clone.\u201d It\u2019s nature versus nurture playing out in real time: Belle\u2019s temperament is, according to Anderson, the same as Chai\u2019s, although her personality is different because their early years were. Still, some moments bring back glimmers of memories with Chai. \u201cShe would sleep pressed up against my back, and every once in a while, I\u2019ll wake up to Belle sleeping with me in the same way,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>\u201cGetting another Ragdoll felt more like a replacement in my head than cloning her, which was grief logic. Cloning felt more poetic, like a continuation of her story. But if you are looking for a copy-paste sci-fi idea of cloning, don\u2019t clone\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>ViaGen frames pet cloning as a preservation of bonds; a story of second-chances where \u201clove meets science\u201d. The cloning process, as outlined on the website, reads simple enough: after genetically preserving your pet (which is recommended to do while they are still alive), ViaGen fuses one of these preserved cells with the egg of a donor female dog, \u201cforming an embryo that grows naturally\u201d. This embryo is then transferred to a surrogate mother, and your pet\u2019s \u201cgenetic twin\u201d is born. \u201cThis is not just a similar dog in spirit, but a true biological match born later with the same DNA,\u201d <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/viagenpets.com\/dogs\/\"><span>it reads<\/span><\/a><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>With talk of legacy, \u201chealthy\u201d surrogate mothers, the health benefits (including living longer) of the human-dog connection and videos of puppies running through green fields, pet cloning is gaining popularity in the same way that biohacking and the longevity movement are. In a culture obsessed with immortalising ourselves online and attempting to hack our biological clock, we expect our pets to be as worried as us about mortality. Only by spending any amount of time with any animal will you know they are far better than us at living in the moment. Also, we\u2019re already far from securing a standard quality of life for all the animals that already exist with us on earth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Lindsay Marshall, an animal science expert with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.humaneworld.org\/en\"><span>Humane World for Animals<\/span><\/a><span>, points to the first known cloned dog, an Afghan hound called Snuppy in South Korea, as an example of the number of (often undiscussed) animals in the cloning process. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/3822573\/snuppy\/\"><span>It took 1,095 extracted eggs and 123 surrogates to birth Snuppy in 2005<\/span><\/a><span>, who has since died of cancer. In modern-day pet cloning facilities, Marshall says little is known about the donor animals and surrogate mothers who are bred and kept as laboratory animals. \u201cCloning a pet is a very human-centric approach because you\u2019re not considering the value of the animals that are <\/span><span>involved,\u201d she says. \u201cAlso, the efficiency of cloning is so ridiculously low.\u201d In a 2022 study of 1,000 cloned dogs, scientists found that about <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/11\/13\/learning\/would-you-clone-your-pet.html\"><span>two per cent of cloning attempts led to a living puppy<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-tiktok\" data-id=\"7322685500211481899\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>We do live in a human-centric society, where animals, at least in the US and many other countries, are simply considered property. There is an emerging conversation about animal sentience happening across the world, but it\u2019s still an uphill battle: only about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ourcommons.ca\/petitions\/en\/Petition\/Details?Petition=e-6955\">32 countries formally recognise non-human animal sentience<\/a>, and animal protection remains low globally. \u201cWhat does it mean for us to take an individual that has the capacity for subjective experience and agency and simply mass-produce them [through cloning]?\u201d says Philip Tedeschi, the co-director of The Institute for Animal Sentience and Protection. \u201cI don&#8217;t think that conversation is really being had.\u201d As scientists rush to clone endangered species for de-extinction, Tedeschi fears we may become careless with the extinction of biodiversity on the planet today, believing that, somewhere down the road, we can just bring everything back to life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Animal rights issues aside, and there are plenty of them, the rise of pet cloning reflects the consumer-driven lens that\u2019s applied across all facets of modern life, including our relationships. \u201c<\/span><span>One of the reasons our relationships are meaningful is because they\u2019re not forever,\u201d says <\/span><span>Tedeschi. \u201cThey are not <\/span><span>reproducible.\u201d In Western culture, death has become something to throw the latest science at. Our structural systems simultaneously beget and denounce grief <\/span><span>\u2013<\/span><span> it\u2019s to be avoided rather than honoured. If grief is love with nowhere to go, as it is so often quoted, it\u2019s little surprise that this is being marketed back to people in the form of pet cloning. \u201cPet grief is often minimised. After <\/span><span>Oliver died, p<\/span><span>eople would text me asking to get a drink when I couldn\u2019t even shower or get off the couch,\u201d says <\/span><span>Johnson. \u201cLosing him felt as hard as when I lost my grandparents. He meant that much to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>\u201cOne of the reasons our relationships are meaningful is because they\u2019re not forever. They are not reproducible\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>There\u2019s another factor to consider when thinking about what cloned pets say about the state of humanity (and the world): the mere fact of bringing a living being into this world with the expectation of it replacing someone else. It\u2019s a philosophical dilemma, and one that Samuel Gorovitz, professor of philosophy at Syracuse University, says is worth weighing the benefits with who the burden of harm falls on, as he does with any ethical choice. \u201cIf the goal is to get the pet you loved back, there\u2019s not a lot of benefits because you will never get the pet you lost, and if you are disappointed in interacting with that pet, there\u2019s a good chance it will know it in some way,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of potential for harm and, even if the benefits did exceed the harm, that\u2019s not good enough if the benefits go to the already privileged people and the harm is inflicted on those already disadvantaged.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>You could say cloned pets are just pets, so who cares? But our relationship with the advancing technology involved in genetic engineering lends itself to other moral conversations, like creating \u201cdesigner babies\u201d or bringing those obsessed with immortality \u201cback to life\u201d. More so, how we treat the non-humans in our natural ecosystem reflects how we view ourselves in relationship to the world. Nothing is forever, no one is replaceable, and loss is inevitable. The beauty of sharing a life with people and animals is that it is finite. No matter how hard we try to fight it, we can\u2019t update other living beings (or ourselves) like the latest iPhone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Johnson doesn\u2019t exactly regret getting Ollie, but she does now see the beauty in having that one special, impermanent relationship. Of having closure. \u201cSome days, I wish I had just let myself go through the grieving process and not be so scared of it,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve never dealt with death very well, and now, in a way, I\u2019m going to have to go through the process of losing Oliver twice.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-series header article-series tags\"><span class=\"heading\">More on these topics:<\/span><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/feature\">Feature<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/animals\">animals<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/technology\">Technology<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/dna\">dna<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/science\">science<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/social-media\">social media<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/pets\">pets<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/death\">Death<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69685\/1\/cloned-pets-fear-of-death-petfluencers-death-grief-mortality-cats-dogs&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-443-2609-1739\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/8\/1438043.jpeg&#8221;] Photo courtesy of Kelly Anderson DateInMeta\u00a0 19,\u00a0 2026 Life &amp; Culture \/ Feature \u2018I could have a piece of him come back\u2019: The murky ethics of pet cloning As celebrities clone their pets and cloned petfluencers multiply online, the growing practice reflects our evolving relationship with mortality February\u00a0 19,\u00a0 2026 Life &amp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,76],"class_list":["post-1780001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1780001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1780001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1780001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1780001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}