Dogs and cats have a fatal flaw—they don’t live long enough. For many pet owners, they’d pay anything to keep their dogs with them forever. Now you can put your money where your heart is, and have your pet cloned. But it won’t be cheap.

Cat cloning has been available for several years, with a price tag of about $32,000. Only a handful of cat owners took advantage of a second life (or would that be a tenth life for an animal that’s already spent nine?) for their cats, however, before the company that offered it, Genetic Savings and Clone, closed its doors. But dog cloning has only become available this year, in Korea, and at a much higher price –– $150,000.

It’s not that dogs are more valuable or missed than cats, or that owners are paying by the pound. The high price tag reflects the difficulty of cloning a dog. And it’s a deal compared to the $19 million that a wealthy owner spent trying to make his husky mix, Missy, the first cloned dog. After seven years American researchers gave up when they were beat to the punch by South Korean researchers who cloned an Afghan Hound named Snuppy (short for Seoul National University puppy).

The American researchers weren’t inept; they were able to clone a cat (CC, for Carbon Copy) on the second attempt, back in 2002. It’s just that dog reproductive physiology makes dog cloning the most difficult of any mammal attempted (read on for why). The South Korean researchers implanted 1,095 eggs in 123 surrogate mothers, resulting in only three pregnancies, with two surviving to birth. The company that is now offering cloning is made up of some of those same scientists. They predict prices may fall to a bargain $50,000 as they perfect their technique.

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