Look I get it. Losing a dog is almost as difficult as losing a family member. It may be even more so as people expect you to get over the loss in a matter of days. But people are paying more than $50,000 to a company to clone their deceased pet. They're attempting to scientifically resurrect their lost animals from the grave.
And right now, business is going good. There's a lot of people looking to resurrect their pets. The wait list is five months long since there's only one U.S. company offering the service. Although the tissue must be harvested within five days of a pet's death, it can last frozen for decades.
"Cloning is growing as fast as we can effectively manage the growth,'' said Blake Russell, the president of ViaGen. Launching in 2002, the company turned to cats and dogs in 2015. People are willing to pay more than $50,000 to bring back their pets. One businessman opened up about cloning his Yorkshire terrier Caesar.
"I could not get a strange dog; I was so heartbroken and emotionally attached and going through this was a way to get a bit of Caesar back,'' he told The New York Post. "I wanted to continue his bloodline, and he was neutered as a baby. The simple answer is, I didn't want another dog; I wanted Caesar's offspring. For me, this was the only way to move forward.''
Dog Clones
But there are ethical conerns to consider. DNA from the deceased pet is inserted into a donor egg then transferred to a surrogate animal This requires surgery on two animals, and the results don't always take. There's concerns about the suffering of animals just to bring back your beloved dog. But ultimately, it may look like your pet, but it's not going to be your pet. It's not going to be the same dog that you spent all of those years with.
The complicated process involves operating on two animals — both the egg donor and the surrogate — which has raised some ethical concerns.
