Bijoux, the husky chow chow who is being cloned, with owner Dominika Sojka, 34, from Bournemouth.(Image: Dominika Sojka)

Heartbroken dog owners plan to bring road death puppy back to life through cloning

Chowski pup Bijoux was found dying on a roadside in Bournemouth after going missing from owners Ian Clague and Dominika Sojka's garden - now the couple are having her DNA cloned

by · The Mirror

A couple left devastated by their dog's road death are planning to give her another chance at life - by cloning her.

Ian Clague and partner Dominika Sojka are hoping to clone their husky chow chow cross Bijoux after she was posted missing and subsequently found dying on a road in Bournemouth in June. The eight-month-old pup's lifeless body was brought into vets by a stranger who said he'd found her.

Their agony was compounded when, shortly later, they were victims of a sick call telling them their dog was "with Jesus". Dominika and Ian thought the call, from a withheld number, may have been from the stranger who found Bijoux, but now believe it was a twisted prank from someone who saw their missing appeal.

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Dog lover Dominika with puppy Bijoux, a rare husky chow chow cross( Image: Dominika Sojka)
Bijoux was only eight months old and the couple are determined to give her another shot at life( Image: Dominika Sojka)

Eight-month-old Bijoux, a new and rare breed, disappeared after she was put out in the couple's secured garden at their home in Bournemouth along with their other puppy, Safi. But the frantic search which followed ended in heartbreak after they received the call from their vets.

Since the couple's loss, information has suggested Bijoux was tragically hit by a car after escaping a hole in the couple's fence.. Determined not to entirely lose their beloved pet, Ian and Dominikia are now putting plans in motion to have a genetic copy of Bijoux grown in a lab. Pet cloning is only currently done in the US, although the process can be started in the UK. The couple discovered Gemini Genetics in Shropshire after searching online for options.

"I think we all saw the news about Dolly the sheep then forgot about it, but the industry has been working away in the background," Ian, 62, a green energy company boss, told The Mirror. "I think a lot of people are emotionally attached to their dogs and I've stories of people doing this then having 25-30 years with the same dog. Or two reincarnations, even.

Bijoux was found in a road with fatal injuries after disappearing from the couple's garden( Image: Dominika Sojka)

"Certainly for us it has given us a lot of hope. It transformed the feeling from one of sadness to hope we may be able to restore her." Dominika, 34, found a firm based in Whitchurch, Shropshire, which is able to preserve and grow cell samples from animals straight after death.

All being well, Bijoux's cells would then be sent to labs in the US able to replicate the DNA and turn them into early stage embryos which are implanted into a surrogate dog to carry. Pet cloning is still relatively unheard of in the UK but rose to public attention after star Barbra Streisand revealed last year she'd had her dead dog Samantha cloned twice, with Simon Cowell recently claiming he was also looking into the process.

Dominika, a broker for a private jet firm, said: "Because Bijoux was so young, you wonder what she would have been like getting older. You have all these questions." She added that Bijoux had been like a child to the couple and travelled with them everywhere, so they were extremely eager to give her another chance at life.

How are pets cloned?

Tissue samples are taken from pets within five days of death so that scientists can extract DNA. This is then cultured and multiplied in the lab, and cryogenically stored. When it's ready to be sent for cloning, scientists will:

  1. Select the nucleus of a donor cell, which is transferred into a host egg cell. The process is known as somatic-cell nuclear transfer.
  2. The implanted egg cell is zapped with an electric current to create an embryo.
  3. The embryo is then transferred into a surrogate mother. Some surrogates can carry different embryos for different clients, provided they will be distinctive enough to tell apart.
  4. The surrogate will carry the pregnancy to full term and give birth as normal.

Cloning dogs with Gemini Genetics, costs £500 for DNA extraction and storage, but upwards of £50,000 for the process itself. The company also clones cats and horses, the latter of which costs $80,000 to reproduce.

Should Bijoux's DNA be sent for cloning, it will be shipped to Texas firm ViaGen who transfer the DNA into a host egg cell and zapped with an electric current to multiply into an embryo, which would be transferred into a surrogate dog. Baby Bijoux would then be born in the US and weaned, until being moved back to the UK.

The UK's first ever cloned dog was 12-year-old dachshund Winnie back in 2014, after owner Rebecca Bourne entered a Channel 4 competition to win the £60,000 process. While Winnie sadly died aged 17, Mini Winnie still lives with Rebecca in Suffolk, along with her puppy Wally and grand-pup Whoopi.