Pet Owner Calls Spending $25K To Clone Her Cat One Of The Best Decisions She's Made
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Pet Owner Calls Spending $25K To Clone Her Cat One Of The Best Decisions She's Made

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A pet owner, who spent more than $25K to clone her cat, has called it one of the best decisions that she made. While others who have cloned pets have had misgivings, Kelly Anderson swears by the practice.

In 2017, the pet owner cloned her cat Chai. She named the clone Belle. Speaking with People, Anderson opened up about her decision to clone her pet. She revealed she took out a loan to cover the cost of cloning the pet.

"I think people see stuff in the news about Tom Brady or Paris Hilton cloning their pets and don't realize that the average person is also out there doing this. I'm not wealthy," Anderson told the outlet. She said it was "one of the best decisions I've ever made."

But Anderson said it was important to go in with the right mindset. She said she knew that her new cat wouldn't have the same personality as Chai despite being a genetic clone. But it was worth it to continue Chai's memory.

"Chai came into my life when I was in my later years in college. And it was a time in my life where I was struggling with mental health issues and depression," Anderson shared. "She just immediately synced up with me and understood my emotions in ways that no other animal really ever had. And I've had animals my entire life."

Cloning A Cat

"I went to the vet, had my carrier, was in the private vet room thinking I was picking her up, and the vet walked in about 10 minutes later and told me that when I had walked in, they had gone to get her out of her carrier and found her unresponsive. She basically had a bad reaction to anesthesia," Anderson explained.

After her cat passed away, she began researching cloning.

"It was fresh on my mind the night after Chai passed, and I couldn't sleep and stayed up all night researching cloning and ultimately decided that that was what I wanted to do with Chai's legacy," Anderson recalls. "As soon as I made up my mind about it, I knew that that's what I wanted to do."

Unfortunately, due to the degraded tissue sample Anderson had, it took four years for her to finally get her pet. The pet owner was overjoyed.

"It was so surreal. I wasn't sitting there thinking about Chai in that moment. I was thinking about this small, tiny, baby kitten that I'd been waiting so long to meet, and it's finally here," Anderson said. "I really got to enjoy that moment of receiving Belle and getting to meet Belle."