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Two weeks ago, a palliative care vet entered our home at our request to put our sweet, kind, 13-year-old rescue dog Pip to sleep. It was a hideous decision, one that still keeps me awake at night. Making this choice is appalling and gut-wrenching, but ultimately it’s the last act of love we can offer the dogs we’ve shared our lives with.
Pip was a smooth-coated collie, a breed that’s on the vulnerable list because you rarely see them any more. People would stop us in the street to ask what he was – they’d never seen a dog like him before. The breed was popular in the 1970s, but has fallen out of fashion since, though I’m not sure why. They’re wonderful dogs, and are even used as assistance animals in some countries. Pip was so special, though I know every dog owner feels exactly the same way about their own dog. That’s because our dogs share our lives, our homes, our daily experiences. Losing them can feel incomprehensible; learning to live without them can seem impossible.
Yet at no point have I ever considered cloning any of my dogs.
Tom Brady revealed this week that his most recent dog, Junie, is actually a clone of his previous dog, Lua. Given that he’s an investor in a biotech company that specialises in cloning pets, this revelation will undoubtedly generate business while planting the idea in many dog owners’ minds – if they can afford it.
For grieving owners desperate to “bring their dog back”, cloning may feel like the answer to their broken heart. A way to say goodbye without actually saying goodbye for ever. But it’s not that simple. If we’re seriously considering cloning our dogs, we need to pull back the curtain and examine the facts behind this growing industry.
I genuinely believe that by cloning a dog, we miss the entire point of the dog we shared our life with – the one that affected us so profoundly, that became part of the family. That dog was one of a kind, and personally, I’d like them to stay that way. I don’t want to diminish what we had by simply creating a copy.
As a dog behaviourist, I’ve built my methods on a fundamental belief: that every dog is different. Each dog is unique in their own way, with their own personality, quirks and needs. Whether it’s my own dogs, dogs I’ve fostered, or dogs I work with, every single one has been different.
And that’s the point that cloning seems to miss.
When your dog enters your life – whether as a rescue or as a puppy – they’re with you during a specific phase. My deaf dog Cookie was with us before we had children, then stayed as our family grew. She was the apple of my eye, my true love. I miss her every single day. I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach whenever I try to look at videos or photos of her.
If someone told me I could clone her and bring her back, would I? Absolutely not. I’m not the same person I was when we first got her. My life is different now. She was one of a kind, and I could never have her soul back, even if her body looked the same. And this, for me, is the crucial part.
By cloning an adored dog, I believe we do them a disservice. We fail to see them as an individual whose memory deserves to be treasured. We overlook the soul inside them – the essence that connected us on a deeper level. We ignore the reality that our behaviour, our life circumstances, our home environment, our children, our work, our routines will all mean that the cloned dog can never be the same dog. It’s an impossibility, even if they look identical. It’s rather like taking two puppies from the same litter – they may have similarities, but they aren’t the same dog. They never can be.
The rise in dog cloning, with more than 1,200 successful pet-cloning procedures carried out globally in 2023, clearly shows that dog owners are interested in this concept. But I would urge anyone considering it to think about the reason behind this trend. Most often, that reason is to make the owner feel better. It won’t be in the dog’s best interest – it will be to avoid grieving, to satisfy their need to touch that dog again. Believe me, I understand this with my whole broken heart. But I still don’t believe it’s the way forward.
In the UK, cloning your dog is not legal. One company circumvents this by freezing tissue samples and shipping them to the USA for the deed to be done. However, with the fee standing at approximately £45,000 to produce a dog from an ear tissue sample, I would argue that there are far better ways that money could be spent to improve how our dogs are bred and raised in this country.
Gemini Genetics, the UK company that freezes the samples, describes the clone as your dog’s “twin”. But as I’ve pointed out, a twin doesn’t mean you’re getting the same dog. It simply means they may look visually similar. That isn’t the same as the cloned dog being your actual dog, the one you loved and adored.
The wonderful thing about humans is that we can bond so deeply with our dogs, and they with us. It’s a pleasure and a privilege that I’ve dedicated my working life to, because I feel so strongly about helping humans and dogs live happily together. So if you’re looking to bond deeply, to care deeply, to adore a dog deeply, there are countless dogs around the globe searching for that love right here, right now, waiting for you.
Louise Glazebrook is a dog behaviourist and the bestselling author of ‘The book your dog wishes you would read’ and ‘Everything your puppy wants you to know’ – out now, published by Orion. www.louiseglazebrook.com
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