United States – October 19, 2026 -- Pet owners who dread saying goodbye can now choose from longevity drugs in testing, $50,000 clones, and cryonic storage, and each option comes with caveats.
Loyal is testing a dog drug in about 1,300 pets
Loyal is working on three potential longevity drugs for dogs. It is trialing one, designed to improve metabolic health, in around 1,300 pet dogs across the US. Other companies are testing dog drugs aimed at age-related conditions such as obesity and osteoarthritis, and at aging itself. One company focuses on longevity medicines for domesticated cats.
Viagen Pets clones cats and dogs for $50,000 each
Cloning typically means placing a pet's DNA into an egg cell from another animal of the same species. The resulting embryo grows in a surrogate animal. The method worked for Dolly the sheep and has since worked for cattle, horses, ferrets, cats, and dogs. The result is a genetic twin, not an exact replica. Viagen's website pitches cloning as “a way to hold on.”
Lori Kogan, a clinical sciences professor at Colorado State University who has studied human-animal relationships for decades, sees no problem with it. She notes that funerals, time off work, and memorial gifts exist for human loss but not for pets. That gap can leave owners with “disenfranchised grief,” she says.
Alcor stores hundreds of pets in Arizona
A handful of companies cool dead pets to extremely low temperatures and store them, potentially indefinitely, in the hope that future technology can revive them and cure what killed them. Alcor, a cryonics facility in Arizona, holds the remains of hundreds of pets as well as people. It recently announced it had cooled its first pet sugar glider, a small marsupial.
The odds of reunion are bordering on zero. Even people working in the field acknowledge that stored people and animals are unlikely to be reanimated.