Pick of the Week: Copy cat: How cloning is helping this Kelowna woman

Kelowna’s Kris Stewart lost her beloved cat Bear last month after he was hit by a car.

But Stewart has every hope of getting Bear back, so to speak. It’s not cheap, but she thinks it’s worth every penny to address her feelings of emptiness.

“I was stunned, and in a state of disbelief and I think I’m still in a state of disbelief, that this cat who has a personality as big as a house, isn’t going to be coming to the front door wanting in anymore,” she said.

Stewart described Bear as having a huge personality and being very intelligent. The feline figured out how to unlock certain doors to get outside and live an outdoor-cat lifestyle.

“I was emotionally attached to him, but the bigger statement is, he was an infinitely intelligent animal,” she said. “I’ve had cats all my life, never once have I ever met a cat like this. He had the intelligence that went beyond even a dog would have.”

Stewart has begun the process of bringing Bear back into the world with an American based company called ViaGen. The company helps preserve pet cells through a genetic preservation process, which leads to the eventual cloning of dogs, cats, and horses.

The cost to clone a cat through this process is around US $35,000.

ViaGen Client Services Manager, Melain Rodriguez, told Kelowna10 the idea of cloning has come a long way since Dolly the sheep 25 years ago. she said one common misconception is that cloned animals aren’t healthy, and don’t live a normal life.

“There have been lots of studies done on cloned animals since Dolly was cloned and they ‘ve been shown to live a normal life span and to be healthy,” she said. “Cloned animals are just as healthy as any conventional bred animal. The only difference is how that embryo starts to grow.”

Rodriguez cautions, however, that while the clone will physically look the same, it may be a much different animal in terms of behavior.

“It’s a genetic twin, just like human twins have the same DNA. A cloned dog or cat and the original animal are going to have the same DNA, but they have different experiences,” she said. “They can have slightly different personalities, but their DNA is going to be the exact same.”

Stewart hopes "Bear 2.0", as she puts it, will have the same personality traits as its predecessor. She saw firsthand a cloned dog go through the same process and it had similar behavioural patterns.

“I’ve also been in touch with other cloned animal parents who had their animal cloned at ViaGen and they say there’s a pretty close match,” she said. “The dog I met was about a 95 per cent match of the personality of the original dog. My hope is Bear 2.0 will have much the same personality as the original Bear.”

She hopes her story will give owners who’ve lost a beloved pet something to consider.

“Not a lot of people even believe that cloning can be done, that it’s a real thing,” Stewart said. “Even in my own social circle some less informed family members don’t know the cloning of pets and animals can be done.”

As of Feb. 11, cells from Bear had been successfully cryopreserved in the lab. Those cells will be inserted into an embryo from a surrogate cat.

The entire process that could lead to the reincarnated pet can take up to a year.