Streisand strikes wrong chord with animal rights activists by cloning dog

Money can’t buy happiness, but it can keep a certain brand of sadness at bay. Legendary actress and songstress – or infamous diva, as you prefer – Barbra Streisand recently divulged that, before her beloved Coton de Tulear Samantha died, she collected cells from the fluffy little dog’s mouth and stomach.

Were these to be an unusual keepsake for the mourning mother? Not quite. Streisand actually used the cells to have Samantha cloned before her death, much to the disgust of animal rights activists everywhere.

PETA tweeted "We feel Barbra Streisand's grief at losing her beloved dog but would also love to have talked her out of cloning", going on to explain that ethically-speaking, it’s difficult to condone the duplication in light of the millions of dogs in shelters and on the streets.

Streisand was also criticized on social media with a wave of #adoptdontclone posts flooding Twitter feeds.

People also seem to be unsettled by the notion that Streisand is trying to replicate her pet’s personality. Cloning can only guarantee that the animals will have the same genetic identities, but this does seem eerily like an expensive method of cheating death — and, apparently, it costs about $50,000 (R595,585) to swindle the grim reaper in this manner.

With a reported net worth of $370-million, though, money is no object for Streisand: and clone her dog she did. Two little puppies named Miss Scarlett and Miss Violet are the product of this sentimental science project, joining her third Coton de Tulear, Miss Fanny.

According to the barrage of reports that have emerged following Streisand’s admission – which she made in an interview for Variety magazine – Streisand is not the first celebrity to have done this, either. Designer Dianne Von Furstenberg is said to have had Shannon, her Jack Russell, cloned by a Korean company in 2016. 

On the one hand, animal-lovers everywhere are likely to sympathize with the overwhelming love that no doubt motivated Streisand to try to prolong Samantha’s being beyond her actual lifespan.

On the other, there is something unpleasantly self-indulgent about spending so much money to inhibit the loss and sorrow that comes with an animal’s death. Also, it’s a little bit creepy, but that’s not really the point: people are starving, Barbra!