From Ashes to Clones?! The Wild & Beautiful Ways We Memorialize Pets

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:01):
Joy, hey, beautiful soul, welcome to spirit
speakeasy. I'm Joy Giovanni,joyful medium. I'm a working
psychic medium, energy healerand spiritual gifts mentor. This
podcast is like a seat at thetable in a secret club, but with
mediums, mystics and thespiritual luminaries of our
time. So come behind the velvetropes with me and see inside my

(00:24):
world as I chat insider stylewith profoundly gifted souls, we
go deep, share juicy stories,laugh a lot, and it wouldn't be
a speakeasy without greatinsider secrets and tips. You
might even learn that you havesome gifts of your own so step
inside the spirit speakeasy.
Hey, beautiful soul, welcomeback, or welcome in for another

(00:46):
episode of spirit speakeasy.
Today, we're exploring somethingtender and deeply human, the
many ways we honor and rememberour beloved pets after they
cross over. Today's episode iscalled from ashes to cloning the
wild and beautiful ways wememorialize our beloved pets.

(01:09):
For many of us, animals aren'tjust companions. They're family.
In fact, some of our deepestbonds may actually be with the
pets who walk beside us throughthe seasons of change,
heartache, healing and joy ofour lives and when they go the
grief can be just as heavy,sometimes even heavier, than

(01:30):
when we lose a human loved one,because the love of our pets or
our beloved animals is so Pure,so uncomplicated and totally
unconditional. This episode wasactually inspired by a beautiful
message from one of my students.
You'll hear that story a littlelater on in the episode. It
follows up on two of our recentepisodes where we explore human

(01:52):
memorials. If you remember, wehad that creepy postmortem
keepsakes episode and the sevenunique memorials episode where
we talked about turning griefinto art, Inc, trees and
stardust. So if you loved those,you'll definitely want to stay
with me for this one. In thisepisode, we're diving into the
heartfelt, creative andsometimes even high tech ways

(02:16):
people are choosing tomemorialize their furry,
feathered or hooved soul mates,from horse hair jewelry to DNA
infused crystals and 3d printedreplicas and full scale bronze
statues. You'll hear inspiringstories rituals and even a
listener submitted tribute thatmight just move you to tears.

(02:38):
And no, this is not just forcats and dogs. This episode is
for the bunnies, the hamsters,the horses, the piggies and
every beloved animal soul whohas ever left paw prints or hoof
prints on your heart. So as wedive in, some of these do have
some overlap with some of theways that we memorialize our

(03:01):
human loved ones, but there aresome really interesting spins on
some of these animal memorials.
And as you'll see a little bitlater in the episode, some of
these are incredibly intricateand high tech and maybe even a
little science fiction esque,things that I don't know if some

(03:22):
of us thought we'd see in ourlifetime. So this first way I
want to talk about memorializingour pets has to do with ashes
and what to do with them. Thereare so many creative ways people
memorialize and incorporatetheir pets ashes. There was a
time I didn't even realizepeople kept the ashes of their
pets, but they do. So not onlycould you keep the ashes in just

(03:46):
like a lovely urn or container,but you also could get the ashes
infused into glass jewelry oreven glass sculptures, so that
blown glass that we've talkedabout before, or even glass
sculptures. You can also takethose ashes and have pottery
that is actually glazed with thecremains, mixed into the paint

(04:09):
or actually molded into the clayitself, right mixing some of the
ashes into that clay to makebeautiful vases or other pottery
or little sculptures. You couldeven have some of the cremains
used in pottery to make thevessel that you're going to
contain the rest of the ashesin, if you wanted to. There's

(04:33):
also, of course, cremation art,which involves painting or mixed
media pieces that use orincorporate the ashes in some
way into the actual paintingitself. And of course, we all
have now, hopefully, if you'velistened to those other
episodes, heard about treeplanting with biodegradable
urns, so the urn itself isactually biodegradable. The

(04:54):
ashes go inside with compostmaterial and then is planted and
a tree. Sprouts right out ofthere. So there are lots of
wonderful ways to incorporatethe ashes. If you are someone
that had a pet or a workinganimal that you loved, cremated
and you want to use those ashesfor something besides sitting on

(05:15):
your shelf. There are so manycreative ways to do that, but
even more creative and even moreout of the box, especially if
you're someone that doesn't havethe physical ashes. There are
these incredible digital agememorials, so kind of these
innovative tech forward ways ofhonoring our pets. And that

(05:35):
brings me to the next sectionthat I want to talk about. So
there are some really creativeones under this headache, I have
to tell you, this one actuallyincludes virtual pets. So
essentially, it is like adigital like an app in your

(05:58):
phone or on your tablet thatkeeps a digital version of your
pet alive. Now there are somedifferent versions of this. Some
of them use, like memories andphotos. Others of them, you
make, actually a little avatarof your pet and you interact
with the animal. So that'sanother way that you can do it.

(06:19):
You can kind of keep theirlittle personality in the app
and kind of have a have them asa virtual pet, since their
physical body is not hereanymore, you can virtually still
interact through the way thatthey take the memories and
photos that you submit or youupload to really go towards more
of a realistic likeness of thatpet choosing the features. You

(06:41):
can even choose collars orlittle beds for them. So it
really depending on the appreally does get quite intricate.
What you can do. Anotherdifferent version of kind of a
techie, innovative way ofmemorializing your pet that I
hadn't even ever thought of is3d printed replicas of your pet

(07:04):
using photos, yes. So there areso many things that they're
making on these 3d printers. Idon't have one, but I have
definitely ordered some littlejewelry and and even, like a
little tie thing that's, youknow, it's usually plastic. It's
like a hard plastic. So I in mydeep dive of all of the

(07:24):
research, found there are peoplethat'll do it for you if you
don't have a 3d printer, butthere are lots of people doing
these on their own, where youput in several images, and then
you actually can set up theprinter to print a 3d version of
your pet now, these are small,so think of it as kind of like

(07:48):
action figure size, or smaller,even those little trinkets that
we, you know, just kind of keepon a shelf, so kind of toy
sized, right? And some peoplegot really creative with these.
Some people just printed it out.
Some people printed a mold,actually, and then used that
mold to create other pieces ofart, which we'll talk about in a
minute. But some people tookthat raw printed

(08:15):
figurine, I guess, is what itis, of their pet, and then
actually used the photos to goin and do really detailed
painting to actually make surethat they were capturing the
specific markings of theindividual animal. You know,
different animals have differentmarkings, of course, but to make
it really, really realistic andreally like exactly in memorial

(08:39):
of your pet, it's not just anyorange cat it has, like the
stripes of yours and the whitecircle around the eye, or
whatever it might have been. The3d printing thing was really
intriguing to me, just because,you know, sometimes it's cool to
have something that's justreally totally personal. Now,
along this line of these digitalage memorials, I'm not an AR

(09:01):
person augmented reality. That'sthose, like goggle things we've
probably all seen in on TV andmovies. But there are these
augmented reality experienceswhere you can kind of go into
this 3d World and and spend timewith your pet. And there's also
a QR code that can be createdthat shows the pets in motion,

(09:27):
and you can hear the sounds thatthey're making. I have a feeling
there's lots of video on thingsthat needs to be submitted as
part of this to make it super,super authentic, but there are
probably ways through all of thedifferent pet things that have
been submitted, like, if youonly have videos and photos of
your pet, for example, but youdon't have anything of them
making a sound or really movingaround a ton, I'm sure that they

(09:51):
could use all of this amazingtechnology to make your pet
move. I had a dog that passedaway a handful of years ago,
beloved Fauci. Family member andshe there's lots of pictures of
her, a few videos which shewasn't too much of a mover and a
shaker. She was more of achillaxer, I'll say. So you can

(10:12):
have this augmented reality orthrough a QR code experience of
your pet in this virtual realityspace, there are also similar to
people, human souls, petMemorial websites. So if you're
also not into the virtualreality thing and wanting to
wear the goggles and sit with anavatar of your pet, that way,

(10:34):
you can create, or have someoneelse create a memorial website
for the pet. It can beinteractive. It can be like a
digital scrapbook, even wheremaybe, you know, if you had a
super popular dog, for example,or horse, maybe other people can
put their pictures and storiesand share, and that's just a
really cool way ofmemorializing. This is leading

(10:57):
me to my next section, which hasto do with creative and unique
keepsakes that people keep. Thisis sort of a next level, or
maybe a more tangible way ofdoing that, Memorial website or
interactive digital scrapbook.
This is actually a legacyjournal, and there's a scrapbook
version of it, but a legacyjournal, what is that? Okay?

(11:18):
There are all these wonderful,amazing, creative and talented
human beings out there that havethought of such incredible ways
of memorializing, and this isone of those. So this is
actually from the perspective ofyour pet. So quote, unquote,
written by the pet or theanimal. It's written in the

(11:39):
voice of the animal or the pet.
And you can even go as far ashiring a writer or a grief coach
to really write this for you,like, if you don't feel like
you're a writer, if you don'tfeel like you could write
something in the voice of yourpet, and they will sit down,
almost like a ghost writer, ifyou've ever been involved with

(12:01):
like writing books at all, orknown anyone that's written
books, it's a person that's moreof an expert writer, but they're
writing your story well, they'rewriting your pets story, and
they can even do it wherethey're writing in the voice of
your pet. One of the beautifulthings is this can even be
created for children, likeperhaps you know you had a pet,

(12:24):
and you're the adult, and thereare kids in the family who
really love this pet or animal.
I know not everyone calls theiranimals pets, so you can even
have this done for a kiddo abook from the perspective of the
animal. That's a children'sbook. It could be more
explaining what happened orwhere the animal goes, or it
could just be explaining, youknow, the journey of the the

(12:45):
animal, the kids can actually bewritten into the story in some
of these, if you choose. So thisone is really super creative.
And if you feel like you're I sooften have some of you, you
know, when you come and sit, sitwith me for readings, tell me
that you're not creative. If youfeel like you're not creative,
there are wonderful souls outthere that are more than happy

(13:06):
to let you hire them for theircreative services as writers and
grief specialists. So I thoughtthis legacy journal was a really
cool idea, and that sort of thenext level of that is this
legacy journal and a fullscrapbook, which is like you
would think, photos, maybe pawprints in there, letters, tags,
you can even write out somestories of things that life

(13:31):
experiences and memories withyour animal. You know, maybe you
went places with them. Maybethey're a riding animal, and you
actually rode them and haddifferent experiences through
training and all of that. So itreally can be totally personal
and individualized. And thesejournals, scrapbooks, can be
bound into professional books,like, if you've ever seen, you

(13:55):
know, people send in theirphotos that then they get bound
into, like, hardcover books thatcan be done with these they can
be children's books. They can bememoirs. You could even go as
far as to write like a wholegraphic novel from the
perspective of your animal orincorporating your beloved
animal. Okay, so that is in thewriting section of these unique

(14:16):
and creative keepsakes. I justcontinue to be astounded by the
creativity of people and thebeautiful things that they make.
The next one in this section isthese were really cool,
sculpted, sewn, felted, stuffedanimal versions of your furry
friends. Okay, I wasn't too surewhat this one was going to be. I

(14:40):
found a lot of differentexamples on Etsy. I will have a
source list in the show notes.
If you wanted to look at doingsome of these ideas with your
own animals, or if you just werelike, I want to see what that
looks like. I have some thelinks, some links in the show
notes. So check those out. Thisis one of them. So. Yeah, it is

(15:00):
essentially made from felt orsoft material, sculpted, sewn.
So it's sort of like a stuffedanimal. But that is where the
simplicity ends. I saw so manykinds of these. So some of
these, if you've ever seen them,do like, Excuse me, like 3d

(15:21):
print, not 3d but like printedphotos on fabric, like, if you
ever ordered a t shirt and hadlike a photo printed on there,
well, they can take tons ofimages of your animal, like a
dog a cat. I saw guinea pigs andbunnies and hamsters and any
type of little, holdable animalthat you saw. I saw a

(15:43):
representation of it on on Etsyspecifically so they there's
different ways that they do it.
They take different images ofyour animal, and they print like
the whole side of the animalwould be printed on one piece of
fabric, the face would beprinted on another piece of
fabric. The other side would beprinted on the other side, and
they stitch it all together, andit's printed on there. But there

(16:05):
are even more intricate versionsof this where they actually use
soft felt and fur. Some of itseemed like they might be using
actual fur or hair, and theywere, if you've ever seen a long
time ago. I don't know if thisis even still a thing, because I
know malls don't really exist aton anymore, but these are these
kiosks in the mall or in giftshops, and they were often

(16:27):
little cats or kittens, and theyjust had this soft, what seemed
like actual fur all over them.
And it's sort of like that, butit's made to look in the
likeness of your beloved animal.
So it's sort of like a stuffedanimal, but like to a whole
other level. I'm going to bereal honest, some of them, I it

(16:48):
was a stretch to say they lookedlike the animal. Others of them
were spectacular, where it waslike, wow, it almost not, not in
a creepy way. And you guys know,hopefully by now that, I mean,
all of this was so much love,but it almost reminded me of
like a taxidermy where they takethe actual animal and do the

(17:09):
embalming and preserve them,you know, like, like you would
see, like a pheasant or a deerhanging type thing. But it's
actually not made with theanimal. It's not taxidermy. It's
all stuffed and felted. Thereare some incredible crafts
people that are doing this. Andthe price range, I was very

(17:33):
curious about that. I saw somethat were starting at like $60
and even even in the lower priceranges. If you've ever shopped
on Etsy, you know there arethese different sales that these
shop owners will justperiodically have. There were so
many sales, but the price rangewas from like 50 ish dollars all
the way to like $500 so you canhave this as intricately done as

(17:55):
you want, based on the artists.
But these were just really,really incredible. And a little
part of me is secretly thinkingabout making one of these for
for my daughter, actually,because she didn't get to say
goodbye to her best friend ourdog that we had. So they're just

(18:19):
really incredible. I encourageyou to take a look now. That's
something that you can hold andhug. They're not just for kids,
by the way, lots of adults havethem and make them whether you
want to keep it on a shelf oryou want to keep it on your bed,
where your animal love to sleep,and you can have them in
different poses. I know I'mgoing on about this one for a
little while, but I just foundit really intriguing. So if

(18:40):
they're like at sitting atattention, or if they're just
laying down cuddly, you can havethem created in different action
poses or relaxing poses. I justwas blown away by this one. So a
really fancy version of this iswhat I want to talk about next.
This is sculpted or bronzes ofyour beloved animal. These go

(19:05):
from small size up to like fullsize, actual size of a horse.
And this essentially is sort oflike, if you've ever done any
tourism or gone to any towncenter, typically, there are
these giant bronze statues,sometimes of like a man on a
horse. So it's sort of likethat, like life sized bronze or

(19:28):
sculpture. There are theseartisan studios that craft, it's
like a quite a process. So thisis sort of a fancy version. They
craft a clay model from thephotos, videos, whatever you
give them. They make the claymodel, and then they cast them
in bronze or brass or stainlesssteel. These are meant to be

(19:49):
outdoor sculptures or statues. Isaw them often when I was
looking in people's like gardensor in the front of their home,
kind of in Memorial space.
Pieces really commemoratingthese beloved pets in life, like
details. I saw one that had oneof the owners. There was a
gentleman in the sculpture withthe pet, like holding the pet.
So I think you can get asintricate with these as you

(20:12):
want. They are quite expensive,as you might imagine, so it's
like a whole bronze sculpturethat you're having made. And if
you've ever visited, likesculpture gardens, or maybe
you've seen someone that had,like a beautiful water fountain
feature in the front of theirhouse. It's sort of along those
lines where they, you know, do,they do the clay sculpture and

(20:32):
then they cast it in brass orbronze. They are super heavy, as
you might imagine, but theycapture just these incredible
details, because they're handsculpted initially and then cast
in bronze. So sometimes some ofthem were even really
showcasing, like iconic poses ofthe animal, or expressions. I

(20:53):
saw some of these for,particularly like horses or like
show dogs or working dogs. Therewas one that was really special,
that was some version of whatlooked like a German shepherd to
me. I'm not a dog expert, butthis had been a working dog,
like a like a police dog, andthey had just the most gorgeous

(21:14):
bronze and his tongue was out,and even the eyes looked so
happy and realistic, even thoughit was a bronze sculpture. And I
think bronze is beautiful. Youknow, it patinas over time. So
if you own a home, and you feellike you would like to add a
decorative element to your yard,the reason why I say if you own,

(21:35):
because if you rent, I don'tknow if someone would want you
putting a six foot bronze ofyour horse in front of your
house. But, you know, hey, somelandlords are flexible, but that
was just a really cool kind ofnext level artisan piece that
you can commission someone to dofor you. Okay, this next section
is really about using thingslike the fur paw prints and

(21:59):
clothing. These are moretangible craft items. It's a
different version of craft onthese you'll see so there are
some people that will create foryou needlework, which is sort of
like the little cross stitches,if you've ever seen those, or
just those sewn. Sometimes it'slike a happy saying. Sometimes
there's a little picture, orthey'll even do it as your dog

(22:22):
or cat or animal of any kind,they will take the actual fur or
the thread from any clothingthat your animal had and use the
fur, the actual fur or hair andthe thread and create these
needlework pictures or sayings,which I thought was really

(22:43):
incredible. That feels really,really old fashioned to me,
because I do remember havingseen lots of little, you know,
craft stations over my lifewhere they had almost like that
alpaca fur or like llama fur,and they use it to weave
beautiful pictures and intricatemandalas and things. So it's

(23:04):
essentially like that. You canalso take that fur. There's a
way that they do it, where theybrush it and they really get it
into shape, and then they canspin it into actual yarn. So
they can take the fur, if youhave, like a, like a long haired
cat, or, like a, you know, Ithink it has to be something

(23:27):
with substantial fur, I wouldguess, really short hair, I
think would probably be reallyhard, but they can actually take
the brush first, spin it intoyarn, and make yarn out of this
fur that could then be used tomake bookmarks or tassels or
other wall art. They they'reagain creative. Amazing human
beings out there will take likeif you have an old sweater from

(23:49):
your dog or a blanket from yourhorse, or leashes, for example,
and they'll take all of thatthread and they'll turn it into
incredible mandalas, which arethe big round pictures that are
very geometric and symmetrical,or even stitched designs, or
even interesting kind ofportraits of the animal using

(24:10):
the thread like we were talkingabout. So these are lovely
because they're sort of nonintrusive.
And you can also use the pawprints. So if you have the paw
prints, a lot of people will putthem in things like, you know,
those garden stones, those likecement stones that you could put
your little hand print or a pawprint in. You can make them into

(24:33):
Christmas ornaments and things,anything that you can use to
make a baby hand print orfootprint you can use to make an
animal paw print or hoof print,unless it's like a giant hoof
and then you might need a littlemore material, but you could
still do it. So think of likewhen you press, you know, a palm
print or a baby footprint intolike a clay heart or something

(24:55):
to make a wall hanging, or tomake an ornament, or to make
just keep. Stakes. You candefinitely do that. You could
also use ink instead of clay tomake it framed. If you didn't,
you know, want to use clay.
There is paw print jewelry. Soif you have the paw print, what
you can actually have someone dois shrink it down and etch it
into jewelry, resin, metal.

(25:19):
There's even crystal molds thatpeople will make. And again,
there's that Ash infused jewelrythat they do too. So you can
kind of do it a twofer if youwanted, if you had ashes, but if
you didn't. And we talked aboutthis in the in the human
keepsake episode, if you didn'thave the ashes of their physical
body, for example, but you hadsome, you know, old sweaters and

(25:43):
items of theirs and belovedthings and non toxic. And don't
do it yourself. I might, I mighthave someone help you with this,
or do it in outside area, safetyfirst, friends, obviously, at
least nobody hurt yourself or doanything crazy. But you can burn
some of their things, the items,right? Or even paper that you've
you know, written to them andcreate ashes, if you don't have

(26:04):
ashes up their physical body todo some of these with, if you
like. This next session sectionis really special. And these are
getting into these heavy hitterideas that I was talking about
at the top of the episode. Thisone I want to touch into our
community rituals and sharedgrief, because sometimes we feel

(26:26):
like we need to hold our griefall on our own, and I feel like
this is especially true when itcomes to our beloved animals.
Often, if you're grieving aperson, right, a parent, a
grandparent, people aresympathetic for that, I find
that most of us feel like peoplewill not be so sympathetic. Of

(26:47):
US grieving the loss of a pet,right? And some people are
incredibly sympathetic. But Ithink that the human nature is
like, well, maybe I'm going tokeep this to myself because I'm
really upset, but I think noone's going to take it
seriously. So I think this is sobeautiful because it shows that
we can have community aroundthis type of grief too. And
there is a very particularcommunity that really bands

(27:10):
together when one of theirbeloved animals is going to
cross over, and that is thehorse community. So this is that
story that was sent in by mystudent that I wanted to share.
I'm going to read it the waythat they wrote it. I'm going to
remove out, you know, pronounsand names and things, but
hopefully you'll be able to getthe gist. So this was written

(27:34):
after those the odd keepsakes,the creepy keepsakes episode.
This was written and I justreally inspired me to do this
episode, and hopefully when Iread this to you, you'll see
why. So they said I wanted toshare a morning keepsake ritual
that remains currently common inthe horse community. When their
horse dies, many owners keephair from the tail. Some owners

(27:57):
keep only a lock or two. Otherscut a bob tail and keep the
majority of the tail length. Ifyou've ever seen a horse, you
know their tails are reallylong, so a lot of owners keep
just the entire tail.
Apparently, the hair is braidedand tied with ribbon until the
owner decides what to do withthe keepsake. Options include
braided bracelets or necklaceslockets with swatches of woven

(28:20):
hair, pottery with bits of thehair burned into the glaze, or a
swatch made from the entire tailthat can be used as an extension
for a living horse during horseshows. Did you know that horses
wear extensions for horse shows?
We're learning so much, guys.
Okay, they go on to say, whilethis must seem oddly morbid to

(28:41):
many, to horse folks, it is acomfort. I have a necklace,
bracelet, locket and ceramic potmade for my horse's hair while
both were still living, becauseit's just the hair, right? You
don't have to wait till theypass. You could do while they're
living. For me, it's nodifferent than having a piece of
art commissioned. The result isnot only beautifully ornamental,

(29:02):
but it's personally sentimental.
As a barn family, any and allavailable boarders leave their
work duties, spouses, dinnersand dishes. When we get the call
that a horse is dying, we bringcoffee, cookies, tissues and
carrots for a last horse treat,or in lieu of grave flowers,

(29:24):
someone always has scissors anda ribbon at the ready. We trim
the tail per the owner's requestor assist them to do so we have
a good cry and perhaps aconsolation cookie. And as we
wash, braid and bag the hair forsafe keeping. We share memories
of the horse that we will allgrieve in the coming days

(29:46):
because we forego a formalfuneral with the food and
flowers. Saving a bit of tailhair is our way to show respect
for the equine and the owner. AsI was departing the barn after
my beloved horse. Horse died, mybest barn buddy friend came to
my car with a big black trashbag, she said, gently placed it

(30:08):
in my trunk, hugged me and said,Only the best horses go to
heaven with a bob tail. All theangels will know how much your
horse was loved. How special isthat you guys, I had no idea
that this whole communitytradition was happening. This is
something that's been going on along time. And how beautiful

(30:29):
that when one person is waitingor assisting their horse and
crossing over, everyone dropswhat they're doing, their work,
their dinner, their family time,and comes to surround and how
sweet is it that they'rebringing carrots instead of
flowers? I just thought that wasso incredible, and what a
special way to memorialize soyou could make your own version

(30:54):
of this, whether it's with acommunity or whether it's just
with your own family or justyourself. You could make a
special tradition of thisyourself, if you wanted to. The
last section that I want to talkabout is sci fi meets
sentimental. Okay, these aremore scientific based memorials.
There is so much that they aredoing with DNA. Now, folks, I

(31:16):
don't know if you're going to besurprised, but I certainly have
been over the years. So they cando things like we talked about
with the humans, where they cantake DNA and they can turn it
into diamonds or jewelry, if youwanted that. So synthetic
diamonds, glass pendants, usingthe actual animal DNA. They
also, this is a little unusual,but they also create custom

(31:40):
microscope slides with bits ofthe DNA on it. If you want that,
they will do fur whiskers orblood to preserve it on the
slide so you can look under yourmicroscope and see your animals
whiskers, if you want. They alsodo this for archival reasons,
like if you had specificallylike thoroughbred horse, for

(32:02):
example, with the DNA andartistic reasons. So some people
are not using these in ascientific way and are just
using them to have framed orthey keep it in a box with a
little loop a little magnifierso they can look at it. Now, I
think the most extreme of theDNA with the pets is pet
cloning? Yes, there are peoplecloning their pets. There is

(32:25):
full scientific cloningavailable from the DNA of your
pet. This is really happening.
So what is pet cloning and howdoes it work? I'm going to give
you all the deets right now.
Actually know someone that hasgone through a good bit of this
process, so it's been reallyfascinating to learn about it
from them over the years, andthen to dive in and do a little

(32:45):
research on it myself. So thispet cloning, the method is used.
It's called somatic cell nucleartransfer. It's the same
technology that produced Dolly,the sheep. For those of you that
remember when we were cloningsheeps in the early sheeps sheep
in the early 2000 there wasDolly. She was the first clone

(33:07):
sheep. So it's essentially thatsame process. A skin tissue
sample is collected from yourpet. This can either be done
through a biopsy while they'restill alive, or it can be done
within five days of theirpassing. So it is something you
have to sort of plan for andchoose pretty quickly. If you're
going to choose it, they can doit while your animal's still

(33:28):
alive, just to harvest that DNAand store it for you. Or you
could do it within five days ofyour animal's passing, and then
in the lab technicians removethe nucleus from a donor egg,
like an animal egg, and insertthe nucleus from your pet's
cell. So replacing the nucleusof a donor egg with the nucleus

(33:50):
of your pet's cells and anelectrical stimulation fuses
them, which creates the embryo.
So sort of similar to, I guess,what they do in in vitro to
create an embryo. That embryo isthen implanted in a surrogate
mother of the species that theanimal is. So if you're cloning
a dog, for example, there is asurrogate dog that that embryo

(34:11):
will then, you know, it's like,like, IVF, the embryo goes into
the dog.
This is pretty pricey, as youmight imagine, and there's often
a bit of a wait so a cloning adog or a cat costs around 50k
and what I found is that it'soften paid. You know, they let

(34:32):
you make some payments, paymentplan, or do it in a couple
different installments, andthere can be up to a five to
seven month wait list before thecloning of your actual animal
begins, because, believe it ornot, there is pretty high demand
for this alternatively, there isa DNA preservation option. If
you are not ready yet, but youdo want to preserve this option,

(34:55):
you can, like I said, even ifyour animal's still alive, you
can retrieve that DNA. Thebiopsy, and then you can send it
to one of these companies, andthey will store the tissue for
future cloning. The cost of thisis roughly like between 15 102k
us, and then 150 a year to dostorage. So you pay an initial

(35:18):
fee, and then you are payingthem to store that genetic
matter for you from your belovedanimal. This is really
interesting. There's, like, awhole system in place for this,
and there's more than onecompany that does it. This is
pretty advanced at this point.
So what is the surrogateprocess? A surrogate, which is,
you know, that the egg donor andsometimes the pregnant carrier,
that sometimes those are thesame dog. In this example,

(35:40):
sometimes they're not. So theyimpregnate that dog, and then
the dog carries the embryo, dog,the puppy, your DNA clone puppy,
to term, and births it into theworld. A lot of these companies,
kind of similar to what they dowith IVF, are implanting
multiple embryos per surrogateto improve the chances of an

(36:02):
actual viable birth. I just haveknown so many people that have
gone through the in vitrofertilization process and and
worked to, you know, have babiesother ways, and this just sounds
so similar to what they've gonethrough with that. So they
implant multiple embryos withthe hope of having, you know, at
least one that is brought tofull term. For example, there,

(36:24):
there was the first clone dog.
Was called snuppy like puppy,like puppy, and Snoopy had a
baby. Snoopy, it was the firstclone dog in 2005
it involved 123surrogates, and over 1000
embryos just to get one viablepuppy. Now that is not the norm

(36:46):
these days. That was the firsttime it was done. So it took
them a lot of tries. So what isthe actual success rate looking
like on this these days? And Ialso want to touch into some
ethical considerations. Forthose of you that are going to
be very concerned about thatthere, the truth is there are

(37:07):
still high embryo failure rates,which means many surrogates are
needed. It's, it's it's hard todo this process. It's not always
successful the first time. Andon the other side of this coin,
of this miracle that thiscloning can be, there are some
welfare concerns being raisedfor some of these animals,

(37:30):
because they need multiplesurrogates. Sometimes the cloned
animals something else to beaware of. They are not the same
animal because they're cloned,so they are technically a
genetic twin, but they're notperfect, perfect replicas. There
are environmental factors thatinfluence the personality and

(37:52):
appearance. The other thing thatI got really curious about, just
in a purely nerd mind, kind of away is I really was like, okay,
so kind of similar, like I wassaying to human surrogacy,
right? You take the embryo andyou're putting in this surrogate
dog, well, some of the dog's DNAas the mother is crossing into

(38:16):
that amniotic fluid and and theysaid, Yes, like that is
happening. So even though it's agenetic clone there, there is a
certain percentage of thesurrogate dog's DNA that gets
mixed with this dog's DNA asjust part of it. And while the
dog often looks quite similar inappearance, the personality is
not guaranteed to be the same.

(38:39):
And I my the person that I knowthat was in the process of doing
this, we ended up having severalconversations about the soul of
the dog, right? Because the theanimals that we have a
relationship with, I believe youdon't have to subscribe to this
belief, but just like we are asoul having a human experience,
I believe our animals also oursoul. If you've ever had an

(39:02):
animal that was part of yourfamily that you loved, you know
for sure, there is a soul insidethere. It's not just empty in
there. So I think some of myconcern was, you know, of
course, for the mother and forthe puppies, and how, how does
this actually look? And just toI really wanted the person that

(39:22):
I knew to know that there's thisvery high likelihood that the
same soul is not going to comeinto this clone dog that was in
your dog that you love so much.
And we're going to do anotherepisode soon about personality
and our soul, but if a differentsoul came into that dog, then
that dog might have a lot ofdifferent personality. They

(39:43):
might have some similar traitsjust because of the genetic
component of it. But is it goingto be the same soul that you
knew that you love so much?
Probably not. I can't say 100%for sure either way, and I think
sure it could be. Possible, butI don't think it's the
likelihood. So there are justsome concerns in there. From

(40:05):
what I understand, I can't provethis that. I think you'd have to
do some like spot checks to seebut they say the surrogates are
treated incredibly well, and assoon as they deliver litter,
they're retired. So it doesn'tseem like they're trying to
create a puppy mill situationwhere the same surrogate dogs
are used over and over. It seemslike they do one time of it, and

(40:27):
then they are retired from that,and they're not bred again. I
hope that is the case. So there,believe it or not, at this
point, when I am recording thisepisode, there have been over
2000 dogs that have been clonedsince 2025 maybe not a lot, it's
about 20 years. So 2000 dogs,including via this company

(40:51):
called Biogen one example, aftertwo failed attempts, there was a
Canadian cat named bear that wassuccessfully cloned twice. So
not only can you have your catcloned once, but you can have it
clone twice, and they ended upwith two kittens that were the
genetic match of the cat thatthey were wanting to clone for

(41:13):
$50,000 some people havereported after having this done,
you know, because this is a veryunique group of people this. You
know, it's 2000 dogs. I don'tknow how many cats, I don't know
how many horses, I don't knowwhat else they're doing this
with, but it's a unique group ofpeople. Not everyone has
experienced cloning an animal,so as you might imagine, they're
surveying them and having followup conversations. So some people

(41:37):
are reporting that the cloneshave a lot of the physical
traits, even mannerisms, like,if your dog, my dog used to,
like, we called it a wigglebutt. She used to kind of WAG,
wiggle her whole back half. Shewas an English bulldog, so she
kind of wiggle her whole headback half in a certain way.
Maybe the clone dog is doingthat same trait. Or maybe they

(41:57):
turn their head in just theexact same way. Maybe they, you
know, mannerisms, they havesimilar mannerisms to the dog
that they were cloned from.
Though, a lot of people remotereport, report that the
emotional resonance varies likethey might not have the same
temperament. They don't have thesame exact personality, and the
emotional connection that theygive is not it varies. It's not

(42:22):
always the same. But I justthought that was such a
fascinating. Way that we'rememorializing a beloved animal
is to actually clone them tocreate them again. And I wonder
how far we are away from tryingto do this with humans. I know
there are a lot of sci fi moviesabout it, but with pets, I just

(42:43):
think it's so fascinating andinteresting that if you really
wanted to make this hugeinvestment, you could have your
dog cloned. What some people dothat I know especially if your
dog, or the horse, for example,is purebred from breeders that
are very experienced. You can goback to that same breeder and

(43:05):
have a same it's not the same,obviously, but have a animal
from one of their litters again,and that is often where they're
getting their temperament. It'sin the breeding and in the way
that they're handled in theirearly days. So if you felt like,
well, it's a big commitment todo this full cloning process,
you could also just get a verysimilar type breed, or even

(43:26):
perhaps, depending how long it'sbeen, the same parents of the
animal that you had. So this isa hugely emotional process. I
know that the cloning thing isvery charged for a lot of
people, because there are justso many scientific elements, to
look at ethical elements, tolook at human elements,
emotional elements. So thatone's a lot and very

(43:48):
interesting. But I'm curious toknow what you guys think about
it. So whether you yourself havekept a lock of fur, made a
special Memorial candle withtheir picture on it, planted a
tree with their ashescommissioned a sculpture or
simply sent out the whisper fromyour heart that you miss them
into the stars in the night sky.

(44:10):
Know this, your love reallymatters, and your grief is
sacred. There's no right orwrong way to honor an animal
that you've loved. Some ritualsare really elaborate. Others are
private and simple, but all ofthem carry the same heart, a
deep desire to say, youmattered. You remembered. You're

(44:31):
still family. You're still withme. So if you've been looking
for a sign to create a littleritual of your own, this is it.
You can light a candle. You canwrite that letter. You can wear
the bracelet with your pet'sname on it. You can name a star
for them, because the truth weknow is love never dies, and
neither does the bond betweensouls, no matter how many legs

(44:55):
they walked on or how much furthey had. So I hope that this
has been an interesting and. Onmaybe even eye opening episode
for you for how we memorializesome of the most significant
souls in our lives that are someof the closest beings to us, I
think we sometimes confide inand hold our animals in spaces

(45:17):
in our lives where we don't evenlet the people we love into
those vulnerable levels of ourlife. So I think it's important
to at least think about specialways that honor that
relationship that is so pure andso deep between us as humans and
the beloved animals that we havein our lives. Thanks for joining

(45:39):
me today. Feel free to reach outif you've got a story or a
share, even if it's a sign froman animal, because animals give
signs as well. So I hope thishas just opened your mind one
inch wider and got those wheelsturning about how you might want
to memorialize an animal thatyou loved, or how you might want
to start thinking about amemorial for someone else that

(46:00):
has an animal that they love,Big hugs, lots of love. Bye for
now from inside spiritspeakeasy, you.

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From Ashes to Clones?! The Wild & Beautiful Ways We Memorialize Pets

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