Biotech Firms Test Pet Longevity Drugs as Cloning and Cryonics Draw Owners

Loyal, a company developing three potential longevity drugs for dogs, is running a trial of one candidate designed to improve metabolic health in about 1,300 pet dogs across the United States. Other companies are testing dog drugs aimed at age-related diseases such as obesity and osteoarthritis and at aging itself. At least one company is focused on longevity medicines for domesticated cats.

The essay's author, who writes about the disappearance of her childhood cat Peppy almost 30 years ago, says she would have sought out a drug that might have protected the animal from diabetes or arthritis. Her interest stops there.

Cloning, a newer option for mourning owners, typically involves taking a pet's DNA, placing it in an egg cell from another animal of the same species and growing the resulting embryo in a surrogate. In the United States, Viagen Pets offers to clone cats and dogs for $50,000 each. The result is a genetic twin rather than an exact replica; the company's website describes the service as "a way to hold on."

Lori Kogan, a professor of clinical sciences at Colorado State University who has studied human-animal relationships for decades, does not object to the practice. She notes that while there are established rituals for coping with a person's death, including funeral services, time off work and memorial gifts, pets have no equivalent, and owners can experience what is sometimes called "disenfranchised grief." When those feelings go unrecognized, she says, the result can feel isolating. If cloning a pet brings a person peace, she asks, "who are we to judge?"

The author draws a distinction for children, for whom a pet's death is often a first encounter with death. Losing Peppy was a formative experience, she writes, and she would not want her own children to believe that death is not final or that individuals can be replicated or replaced.

Cryonics companies offer a further option: cooling dead pets to extremely low temperatures and storing them for long periods, potentially indefinitely, on the premise that future technology will revive them and cure whatever killed them. Alcor, a cryonics facility in Arizona, is storing the remains of hundreds of pets and people and recently announced it had cooled its first pet sugar glider, a small marsupial.

The essay states that the chances of being reunited with a pet through cryonics are close to zero, and that even people working in the field acknowledge stored animals and humans are unlikely to be reanimated. As things stand, it says, there is no way to truly bring any animal back. Concluding on Peppy, the author says she would not store the cat in liquid nitrogen or have another cat give birth to a genetically identical animal.