Getting the genetic material seems trivial.
Can anyone recommend a service?
I guess the fact of such services existing and competing drives forward and funds genetics research, so from that point of view I'm glad they exist, but it seems like a strange way to spend so much money.
https://www.straypetsinneed.org/
and
https://guardianangelscatrescue.org/
from which we recently adopted Grace Hopper and Enrico Fermi, now beloved family members.
I know people who have grieved for months after losing their cat and their dog. Their connection was much more than "just a pet", it became family and as important as a child, sibling or parent.
Cloning is of course not guarantee the pet will be exactly as the original, but if there's a chance it will have similar personality I can very much understand the willingness to pay for it.
Grief is hard, but going back is impossible.
I love cats and dogs dearly, so I don't say this lightly, but please just get a new cat (even the same breed!) and save the money for a worthier cause.
If the new cat behaves differently (which it will), you’re forced into one of two painful positions:
“This isn’t really them.” “Why aren’t you like you used to be?”
That comparison can prevent the new animal from being accepted as its own being.
[00s heavy electric music intensifies]
Given how popular (and expensive) it is for horses, it likely delivers on the results people are looking for. Note that current cloning techniques don't clone the mitochondria, which represents 1%-2% of the genome.
It also only has a ~30% success rate, so it might be in the ballpark of $200K to get a living clone
Seriously, though, why are you asking? Was there some breakthrough in biology recently that made it feasible and available?
Or are we actually talking about cat(1)?
A UNIX fork is actually a clone of the process, in the first place.
(SCNR)
Wasted money.
But in all seriousness I’m interested in knowing the answer to this too, just out of sheer curiosity.
