She Cloned Her Dead Dog and Regretted It: “I Would Never Do It Again”
Losing a pet can send grief-stricken owners down some unexpected roads, and for Vanessa Johnson from Claremont, California, that road led to one of the most controversial and costly decisions imaginable. While deep in mourning, she spent around $50,000 to have her beloved dog cloned, hoping to hold onto a piece of the companion she had lost. Today, she openly reflects on that choice with a complicated mix of love and regret. Her story has sparked a conversation about grief, money, and the limits of what science can offer a broken heart.
Johnson first crossed paths with Oliver, a six-year-old shih tzu, back in 2013 when she temporarily fostered him as a favor to a friend. She had not been looking for a dog at all, but Oliver had other plans. He climbed into her car, nestled against her chest, and in that moment she knew he was hers. For the next eleven years, the two were nearly inseparable, with Johnson describing him as stubborn, funny, deeply loyal, and so well-behaved that she brought him almost everywhere she went.
When Oliver passed away in 2024 from kidney failure, Johnson was completely devastated. While searching the internet for ways to cope with her grief, she stumbled upon an advertisement for pet cloning services. The idea caught her off guard because, while she knew cloning existed, she had never seriously entertained it as an option before. She made the decision quickly, explaining that once she committed to it, the weight of her grief softened slightly because she had something to look forward to.
The process itself turned out to be far more emotionally draining than she had anticipated. It took three separate attempts before the procedure was successful, and the entire journey lasted eleven months. Each failed attempt felt like a fresh wave of loss layered on top of her existing grief. When a puppy was finally born and she named him Ollie, she was already in a completely different emotional place than when she had first signed up.
Johnson has been candid about her second thoughts since Ollie arrived. Raising a puppy, she quickly realized, is a world apart from caring for a calm, elderly dog, and the mismatch caught her off guard. She has said that had she allowed herself more time to grieve before making the decision, she likely would have gone to a shelter and adopted an older dog instead. She believes she would have been ready to open her heart to another dog on her own terms, without spending a small fortune to do it.
That said, she is not saying Ollie has been a disappointment. She describes loving him deeply and says he has continued to heal parts of her she did not know were still hurting. She also notes that the two dogs look nearly identical and share very similar core personalities, which has been both comforting and surreal. For Johnson, two truths exist side by side, that she regrets the decision she made and that she is grateful for the dog who came from it.
She has also responded thoughtfully to those who questioned why she did not simply adopt rather than clone. Johnson pointed out that she has spent decades volunteering at shelters, fostering animals, and donating to rescue organizations, and that cloning Ollie has not changed any of that. She acknowledged that most people’s discomfort comes less from the ethics of helping an animal and more from the staggering sum of money involved. Her parting message to others who might find themselves in a similar emotional spiral is to allow themselves to fully grieve before making any major decisions, because heartbreak has a way of steering people toward choices they might not make with a clearer head.
If you have ever lost a pet and wondered what you would do to hold onto them, share your thoughts in the comments.
