A cat owner has told how she has spent almost £20,000 on cloning her “soulmate” pet as she was so upset when she died.
Kelly Anderson, 32, from Texas, was mourning the loss of her five-year-old cat Chai, who died in 2017, when she decided to get in touch with a company that offers animal cloning services.
She said that the process of having her cat cloned took four years and now she has a new pet called Belle who shares the same DNA.
Speaking on ITV ’s This Morning, Kelly said that Chai was the “closest thing she could describe to a soulmate.”
She said: “I lost her very young, so when she passed I remembered a conversation I had with my roommate about cloning and I reached out to ViaGen Pets.
“Belle came into my life just last year.”
Texas based ViaGen Pets is part of TransOva Genetics that has been cloning horses and livestock for 17 years and recently they have also started to offer the service for dogs and cats.
Kelly had her cat cloned for $25,000 (£19,100) and it is now $10,000 more expensive while the cost of cloning dogs is $50,000.
She explained: “She is her own cat. I never expected her to be Chai, I never wanted her to be Chai.
"It is a piece of Chai and that is what matters most to me, that I get to carry on a piece of her.”
The decision to clone animals is controversial and many people on social media questioned why she didn’t adopt a cat.
One person tweeted that “animals are not objects”.
Another said: “It’s not the same pet you had. It won’t have the same personality or even develop the same connections to you.
"If you’re trying to get over a pet’s death, cloning is the exact opposite thing you should be doing.”
Others on Kelly's Instagram complimented her on her cloned cat.
One said: "So adorable", while another added: "Handsome".
And Kelly has also said that she does adopt cats and has homed over 100 in the past and justified the cost saying that people spend the same amount on cars regularly.
