Accidental fall, accidental loss, death from illness, death of life… Either way, pets will not accompany human beings for a lifetime. When death really comes, how should the master face it calmly?
Even if she was used to seeing “life and death”, Liu Ying couldn’t give a standard answer. As an online promoter of a cloning technology company, she has contacted thousands of pet owners. Every time she receives a phone call from a pet owner, she is excited and desperate. Because of the sudden death of the pet, they are very anxious for a while. It is difficult to accept the reality and subconsciously look for various rescue methods.
“Cloning” has become a life-saver for pet owners – some use it as a “time shuttle”, some use it to resist the great grief that engulfs a pet’s death, and some use it as a way to earn money for their hard work Motivation to prepare for your pet’s future. Although the cost of pet cloning in China is between 100,000 and 200,000, there is still no shortage of owners who spend a lot of money in exchange for “resurrection” of their pets.
Sino Valley, where Liu Ying is located, is a cloning technology company that can “revive” pets. This is also the first pet cloning company in China. It mainly commercializes cats and dogs for consumers, and provides genetic testing, cell storage, etc. The business has been established for ten years and has handled hundreds of commercial pet clones. In October last year, Sino Valley completed a B2 round of financing of 100 million yuan.
At present, the gradual increase of pet owners, the booming pet economy market, and the breakthrough and application of cloning technology have given birth to this big business for the high-end pet consumer market, but at the same time, disputes have also followed. Pet lovers believe that cloning an animal means having multiple “surrogate mothers” suffering.
Death and living are compulsory courses for human beings. When resurrection becomes a business, how should we view it? What does it teach people? What has been lost?
In March 2020, the pets Nao Nao and Xiao Ying, who had accompanied Liu Ying for many years, passed away unexpectedly. It was not until long after his death that Liu Ying learned that there had been many commercial cloning cases in China, but the opportunity for cell sampling and cloning had already been missed by then. In order to make up for the self-blame and guilt, and to let more people avoid the helplessness and regret of “losing” like her, Liu Ying changed her career to the field of pet cloning and joined Sino Valley.
Faced with the death of a pet, some people choose to buy a new pet, some choose not to keep pets again, some choose to adopt stray pets, and some choose to clone. In Liu Ying’s view, no matter which method is used, it is an active choice other than passive acceptance of death, in order to achieve his psychological and emotional comfort.
Liu Ying once met a daughter who had suffered from her father’s domestic violence for a long time. Every time her father was drunk, she would abuse her and her mother. After sobering up, she began to cry, repent and beg for peace. Until a drunken father beat the mother and daughter violently again, the daughter’s pet Golden Retriever came forward and roared to forbid the father from getting close to the mother and daughter. After the father was scared away, he gradually reduced the violence after drinking. However, a few years later, the father came home drunk and punched the mother and daughter again. This time, the golden retriever who was protecting the two of them, angered the father. He grabbed the ashtray on the table and pointed it at the golden retriever’s head. It was smashed hard, and finally Golden Retriever died in time for treatment.
When the daughter found Liu Ying with her last hope, she cried hysterically: “It used to guard me, but now it’s my turn to guard it.” Because of economic relations, the owner chose to store cells for the golden retriever.
More people choose cell storage than pet clones. Cell storage is like the first threshold for cloning. Some people sample cells in advance and plan to start cloning directly after the pet dies. Some people may temporarily choose cell storage due to economic problems, and some people just want to do storage. , is not intended to be cloned. “Cell storage is actually like a kind of fire, giving the owner a thought, making them feel that the cells and tissues are still alive, just like the pet has not died.” Liu Ying said.
Perhaps because of dealing with life and death for a long time, Liu Ying is particularly sensitive to emotions. Among the many clients she has helped, there are patients with severe depression, unknown homosexuals, and middle-aged men who have experienced entrepreneurial failure and betrayal. For them, pets are like family. “For these masters who are very emotionally attached, I think cloning is more like a medicine, a medicine that can heal people.”
Another pet owner, Pan Pan, was cured. In August 2019, Pan Pan happened to see the news of the birth of the first commercial cloned cat “Garlic” in China. At that time, she joked with her boyfriend: Has technology developed to this point? Then if one day Xianxian is gone, we can try to clone. Xianxian is a white long-haired mankikang, named Xianxian because it looks like a “little fairy”.
I didn’t expect a word to become a prophecy. Two months later, Xianxian was diagnosed with a cat, and although she tried her best to save her, she still passed away. Now when it comes to Xianxian, Pan Pan still choked up. In her eyes, Xianxian accompanied her through the lowest period, and also made her feel the hope and happiness of life, so when she learned that the pet died, she had no idea. The flames that were different from rekindling went out again.
Later, Pan Pan contacted a cloning company. She waited for nearly 500 days from the decision to do cloning to cell sampling, establishment of somatic cell lines, embryo transfer and development, and seeing the cloned “Xianxian”. When they first met, Pan Pan would always be in a trance looking at the appearance and voice that were exactly the same as the main body: “This immortal overlaps with the original immortal, as if time has not passed.”
As the “Xianxian” gradually grew up, the appearance of the clone and the main body did not change much, and the character was very lively, but perhaps it was the favor after being lost and found, and the clone was still more “lively and arrogant” than the main body. The difference also made Pan Pan realize that even if more than 99% of the genes are similar, each life is a unique individual, “I will regard the cloned fairy as the offspring of the original body, just like her Like a child.”
Under normal circumstances, the contract period for cloning is 10-12 months. If the contract is not delivered on time, Sino Valley will provide the option of refunding or continuing the cloning for free. According to Liu Ying, there is now an owner. The dog’s embryo has been absorbed by the mother’s body and failed to develop and be born. The contract period has expired, and the delivery has still not expired. “After the owner refused a refund, we are now doing it for her for free”.
“Why is the cost of cloning high, because the cloning efficiency itself is relatively low.” Zhao Jianping, deputy general manager of Sino Valley, once sighed. It is true that the unit price of professional services is high, but it is a fact that the customer base is small and the service time of a single user is long. The superposition of various factors has pushed up the price and threshold of this business, and the high price and high threshold are also destined for this service. It can only be a small group of people, and it is difficult to become popular and universal.
Risk and Controversy
In addition to high prices and high costs, the development and application of cloned animals has always been accompanied by controversy, and people are concerned about the dual challenges of morality and ethics.
Cloning a cat or dog requires raising a large number of animals to complete. Because the probability of conception is difficult to guarantee, it will inevitably involve a large number of “surrogate mothers”. In the earliest experimental stage, a large number of surrogate mothers were implanted with embryos and underwent various operations. For example, in 2005, Korean scientists implanted an average of 5-12 embryos in 123 surrogate dogs. The cumulative experience After 1123 operations, only the cloned dog “Snoopy” was born.
In the eyes of pet lovers, such behavior will cause surrogate animals to suffer a lot of unnecessary pain. Others argue that cloning itself violates the laws of nature and does not benefit society in any way.
Previously, the media visited the surrogate dog production base of the cloning institution, which mentioned that after the surrogate dog in the laboratory has undergone a surrogacy operation, the next surrogacy will be performed after four or five months, from conception to breastfeeding, These Beagles spend most of their first half of their lives in a small cage.
In this regard, Liu Ying explained that in addition to pet cloning, Sino Valley will also do research work for human medical care such as gene editing and regenerative medicine, which will also use surrogate mothers. When doing experiments, generally frogs, mice, rabbits, dogs, and monkeys are animals that are closer to human genes, but the cost of raising experimental monkeys is higher, and dogs are relatively ideal experimental animals. It’s cruel for many people, but for the sick family members, laboratory animals are life-saving existences.