Last year 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 entire lives with.
Pip was a Smooth Coated Collie, a breed on the vulnerable list because you rarely see them anymore. People would stop us in the street to ask what he was—they’d never seen one 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, 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.
A-listers have, though. For, it’s been reported this week that a “cash-strapped” Sarah Ferguson was involved in talks to clone the late Queen Elizabeth II’s beloved corgis for a bizarre reality TV show. The series, allegedly, would have involved the former Duchess of York attempting to make money by selling replicate corgis to other dog lovers the world over.
Meanwhile, in November last year, NFL player Tom Brady revealed he had cloned his late dog, Lua. Undoubtedly, these instances will plant the idea in many dog owners’ minds – if they can afford it.
For grieving dog 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 forever. But it’s not that simple. If you’re seriously considering cloning your dog, we need to pull back the curtain and examine the reasons 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 impacted us so profoundly, that became family. That dog was one of a kind, and I’d like them to stay that way. I don’t want to diminish what we had by simply recreating a copy.
As a dog behaviourist, I’ve built my methods on a fundamental belief: every dog is different. Each dog is unique in their own way, with their own personality, quirks, and needs. Whether it’s been my own dogs, dogs I’ve fostered, or dogs I work with, every single one has been different.
And that’s the entire point that dog 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 and 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 who 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 over 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 to think about the reason behind it. 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, at a fee of approximately £45,000 to produce a dog from an ear tissue sample, I would argue 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 us as 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 best-selling 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
