Kelly Anderson shares her story below…
The fluffy kitten was gently placed in my lap.
“You’re such a beautiful girl,” I cooed.
It was 2011, and I’d just adopted her from a Ragdoll breeder.
I named her Chai because of her soft, creamy colouring.
When I brought her home, she was docile and unusually quiet.
I’d fostered kittens for over 15 years, so I knew something wasn’t right.
Next day, I took her to the vet.
Poor Chai was diagnosed with ear, intestinal and respiratory infections.
She needed treatment and strict quarantine from other cats for three months.
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The treatment was effective, but because she missed early socialisation, she was skittish around my two other cats.
Yet she was incredibly close with me.
On tough days, she would sense my mood and quietly nuzzle into me.
We shared a soul connection.
When Chai was five, I went on holiday, and when I returned, the pet sitter was distraught.
“I’m so sorry,” she cried. “Chai ate a bit of a plastic meat wrapper.”
I raced Chai to the vet.
“We’ll need to operate,” the vet explained.
Feeling uneasy as I waited, I rang my mum.
“It’s routine surgery,” she reassured me. “Chai will be fine.”
But when I arrived to pick her up, the vet’s eyes confirmed my fears.
“Chai passed after the operation,” she apologised.
“We believe it was a bad reaction to the anaesthetic.”
Cradling my girl one last time, I wept bitterly.
A piece of me had died too.
“Our cremator has left for the day,” the vet explained gently, “but we can keep her in the fridge.”
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In a haze of grief, I remembered a conversation I’d had with a friend about pet cloning.
I can’t bring Chai back, but this could be the next best thing, I figured.
That night, I spent hours researching and contacted a cutting-edge animal cloning company called ViaGen Pets.
Because she’d been refrigerated, the lab warned the DNA sample might not be viable, but they were willing to try.
Next day, a courier collected a skin cell biopsy from Chai.
Miraculously, they managed to harvest 6 million live cells.
In October 2017, Chai’s cloning process officially began.
The cells would be developed into embryos and implanted into surrogate cats.
I took out a $25,000 loan to finance the procedure.
If the transfer wasn’t successful, I could receive my money back.For four long years, there were no successful transfers and I started to lose hope.But in 2021, I received a call from the embryologist.
“We’ve had a transfer,” she beamed.In August 2021, Chai 2.0 was born and two months later I was allowed to collect her.She wasn’t as fluffy, and had slightly different markings, but otherwise she was identical.
Because she was just as beautiful, I named her Belle after Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
In time, due to positive early socialisation, Belle proved to be more outgoing than Chai was.
But just like Chai, she was sassy and fiercely loving.
I posted comparisons of Belle and Chai online @clonekitty.
The resemblance is uncanny, people commented.
“I haven’t replaced Chai with Belle,” I tell people, “I’ve honoured her legacy.”
But whenever Belle nuzzles in beside me, I do believe that Chai lives on.
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