| We spoke with Alexandra Horowitz about what she discovered while reporting on ViaGen Pets & Equine, the only business in the U.S. that clones dogs. What drew you to the dog-cloning industry? I’ve written about dogs—their behavior, their minds, their Umwelt—for many years, and eventually I got more interested in what I might call the sociology of living with dogs: their status in societies, their breeding and use, how we treat them. Cloning dogs hits a lot of biological and philosophical points that intersect with that sociology. There is a real sense of uncanniness in this story. Did you learn anything particularly surprising in the course of your reporting? I could understand the human impulse of wanting to extend the relationship with a beloved creature. But what struck me was how several other dogs are used to reproduce one animal. I have deeply loved the dogs I’ve lived with, but I would not want other dogs to be used to, in effect, extend their lives. Also, the extent of cloning—camels for racing in the Middle East, horses for polo players—was beyond my imagination. You show how even just the potential of cloning a beloved pet can provide comfort to someone in grief. At scale, there’s a conservation angle to the practice. Did you encounter others who shared ViaGen’s president’s enthusiasm for the prospect of pastures “filled with baby rhinos”? The idea of cloning endangered animals really gets to the heart of the weirdness—and, for some, the appeal—of cloning. While it may seem magnanimous to clone an animal who is one of the last members of its species, biologists I spoke with tempered their enthusiasm by observing that one needs a diverse—not identical—gene pool in order for a species to flourish. It would be considerably more meaningful to preserve existing populations, rather than assume we can use cloning to fix our errors after the fact. Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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