Can’t bear to say goodbye to your pet? Biotech’s got you covered.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I don’t remember much about Peppy, my first and only pet cat. I can conjure the sensation of stroking her while she purred, recall how she used to get stuck in trees (just like in cartoons!), and chuckle about the time she pooed in my baby sister’s cot. That’s about it. What I do vividly remember, though, is the day she went missing. I was 10 years old, and I searched everywhere for her, scouting nearby fields and woods until sunset. I made posters. We never found her. I was devastated.

执行摘要：关于我的第一只也是唯一一只宠物猫佩皮（Peppy），我记得的不多。我能回想起抚摸她时她发出呼噜声的感觉，记得她过去常像动画片里那样被困在树上，也会为她曾在妹妹婴儿床上拉屎的事而发笑。仅此而已。然而，我清楚地记得她失踪的那一天。当时我 10 岁，我到处找她，在附近的田野和树林里搜寻直到日落。我制作了寻宠启事。但我们再也没找到她。我当时心碎极了。

There was no way to get more time with Peppy, but almost 30 years later, pet owners are being offered an ever-expanding set of options to potentially prolong their years with their furry companions. The possibilities include drugs, cloning, and even cryonics. But is that a good thing? There’s certainly a market for pet preservation. And a growing number of biotech companies have their sights set on pet longevity. Loyal, a company that is currently working on three potential longevity drugs for dogs, is trialing one designed to improve metabolic health in around 1,300 pet dogs across the US. Others are testing dog drugs that aim to combat both age-related diseases, including conditions like obesity and osteoarthritis, and aging itself. There’s even a company focused on longevity medicines for domesticated cats.

当时我无法与佩皮共度更多时光，但近 30 年后的今天，宠物主人有了越来越多的选择，可以延长与毛孩子相伴的岁月。这些可能性包括药物、克隆，甚至人体冷冻技术。但这真的是件好事吗？宠物保存市场确实存在，越来越多的生物技术公司将目光投向了宠物长寿领域。Loyal 是一家目前正在研发三种潜在犬类长寿药物的公司，它正在美国约 1300 只宠物狗身上试验一种旨在改善代谢健康的药物。其他公司也在测试旨在对抗肥胖和骨关节炎等与年龄相关疾病以及衰老本身的犬类药物。甚至还有一家公司专注于家猫的长寿药物。

I don’t know how or when Peppy died. But if there had been a drug that might have protected her from diabetes or arthritis, there’s no doubt I would have tried to get my hands on it. That’s about where my enthusiasm for pet life extension ends, though. I’m far less interested in cloning, a relatively new option for people mourning a pet and seeking a replacement. In most cases, this technology involves taking the DNA of a pet, putting it into an egg cell from another animal of the same species, and growing the resulting embryo in a surrogate animal. It worked for Dolly the sheep, who was born the year before Peppy went missing. It has since worked for other mammals, including cattle, horses, and ferrets—and cats and dogs.

我不知道佩皮是怎么死的，也不知道她是什么时候死的。但如果当时有一种药物能保护她免受糖尿病或关节炎的困扰，我毫无疑问会想方设法弄到它。不过，我对延长宠物寿命的热情也就到此为止了。对于克隆——这种为哀悼宠物并寻求替代品的宠物主人提供的相对较新的选择——我兴趣寥寥。在大多数情况下，这项技术涉及提取宠物的 DNA，将其植入同物种另一只动物的卵细胞中，并将产生的胚胎在代孕动物体内培育。这在克隆羊多莉身上成功了，而多莉出生在佩皮失踪的前一年。此后，这项技术在牛、马、雪貂以及猫狗等其他哺乳动物身上也取得了成功。

In the US, a company called Viagen Pets offers to clone cats and dogs for $50,000 a go. This doesn’t result in an exact replica of the animal but a genetic twin. Still, there are lots of reasons why a person might want to clone a pet. On its website, Viagen explicitly offers customers “a way to hold on.” Lori Kogan, a professor of clinical sciences at Colorado State University who has studied human-animal relationships for decades, doesn’t have a problem with the practice. She points out that while we have well-established rituals for coping with the loss of a person—such as funeral services, time off work, and memorial gifts—we don’t really have the same for pets. As a result, pet owners can experience what is sometimes called “disenfranchised grief,” she says. Having their feelings go unrecognized can feel isolating. If cloning a pet brings a person peace, she says, “who are we to judge?”

在美国，一家名为 Viagen Pets 的公司提供猫狗克隆服务，收费为 5 万美元一次。这并不能产生动物的精确复制品，而是一个基因双胞胎。尽管如此，人们想要克隆宠物的原因有很多。Viagen 在其网站上明确向客户提供“一种坚持下去的方式”。科罗拉多州立大学临床科学教授洛里·科根（Lori Kogan）研究人与动物关系已有数十年，她并不反对这种做法。她指出，虽然我们有处理亲人离世的成熟仪式，如葬礼、休假和纪念礼物，但我们对宠物并没有同样的仪式。她说，因此，宠物主人可能会经历所谓的“被剥夺的悲伤”。感受不到认可会让人感到孤立。她说，如果克隆宠物能给一个人带来平静，“我们又有什么资格评判呢？”

Fair enough. But I can’t help thinking that pet loss in childhood might be different. It’s often the first time a child confronts death. Losing Peppy was a formative experience, and distressing though it was, I like to think it helped prepare me for losses I experienced in adulthood. I wouldn’t want my own children to think that death is not final, and that individuals can be replicated or replaced. Or, for that matter, revived, which is the promise behind pet cryonics. For a fee, a handful of companies offer to cool dead pets to extremely low temperatures and store them for long periods of time—even indefinitely. The idea is that at some point in the future, we’ll have invented incredible technologies that will not only bring your pet back to life but also cure whatever it died of.

说得有道理。但我还是忍不住认为，童年时期的宠物离世可能有所不同。这通常是孩子第一次面对死亡。失去佩皮是一次塑造性格的经历，尽管令人痛苦，但我愿意认为它帮助我为成年后经历的丧失做好了准备。我不希望我的孩子认为死亡不是终点，认为个体是可以复制或替代的。或者，就此而言，认为个体是可以复活的——这正是宠物冷冻技术背后的承诺。一些公司收取费用，将死去的宠物冷却到极低温度并长期（甚至无限期）储存。其理念是，在未来的某个时刻，我们将发明出令人难以置信的技术，不仅能让你的宠物起死回生，还能治愈它致死的疾病。

Alcor, a cryonics facility in Arizona, is currently storing the remains of hundreds of pets as well as people. It even recently announced it had cooled a small marsupial—its first pet sugar glider. With cryonics, the chances of being reunited with your pet are bordering on zero. Even those who work in the field acknowledge that the stored people and animals are unlikely to be reanimated. As things stand, there is no way to really and truly bring any animal “back.” I miss Peppy. But given the chance, would I stick her in a vat of liquid nitrogen? Or get another cat to give birth to a genetically identical animal? No, I would not. RIP to the one and only Peppy.

位于亚利桑那州的冷冻技术机构 Alcor 目前正在储存数百只宠物和人类的遗体。它最近甚至宣布已经冷冻了一只小型有袋动物——其首只宠物蜜袋鼯。通过冷冻技术，与宠物重聚的机会几乎为零。即使是该领域的工作人员也承认，被储存的人和动物不太可能复活。就目前的情况来看，没有任何方法能真正地让任何动物“回来”。我想念佩皮。但如果有机会，我会把她放进液氮罐里吗？或者找另一只猫生下一只基因相同的动物吗？不，我不会。愿独一无二的佩皮安息。