Mr. Potato
I lost my baby, my heart and soul pup on the morning of December 18, 2024, at around 3:30am. He must have been chasing something as he found some loose fence boards, got out of the yard, and was hit by a car…
My heart is shattered. He was only 2.5 years old. We made cremation arrangements the very next morning and I remembered seeing commercials for cloning on TV before so I mentioned it to the lady who was helping us with the arrangements. She said she had a client one time with a 10yo cloned lab and that sparked a bit of hope in me!
As soon as I got home I began my research and found ViaGen Pets. I called and called and called different vets offices to try to find someone to get the tissue samples but every one of them said they “didn’t do anything like that.”
I was at my wits end with the following thoughts just flooding my brain… Ummm, excuse me, you are a veterinarian, that most likely performs surgeries. Your hands are trained to use a scalpel. How can you not obtain just a few skin biopsies for me?! You are TRAINED to do this and I have fool-proof steps for you right in front of me! Have them, read them, HELP ME!
Eventually, after speaking a few times with Batt Veterinary Services here in New Orleans, Dr. David Batt found it in his heart to help me. Thank you Lord for leading me to this man, I thought! He directed me to bring Mr. Potato to him the next morning at 10am.
After getting my baby and shedding more than just a few tears at the thought of my precious boy dead in an ice chest, I left for Dr. Batt’s. I arrived there and filled out a new patient form. Why do I have to fill this out, I questioned the staff. My Potato is deceased and the Dr is just getting some skin biopsies for me to eventually clone him. I felt like a crazy person as those words left my lips.
Anyway, standard procedure was to fill out new patient paperwork regardless, so I sat and did it. They quickly escorted us into a room where Dr. Batt met with me, gave his condolences, and then asked me to run down the process to him.
The man was truly intrigued as he had me forward him the emergency step-by-step instructions. He wanted to make sure he crossed his t’s and dotted his i’s. He took more samples than enough, 8 to be exact! He wanted to make sure that ViaGen Pets had absolutely everything they needed and then some!
I then referred to the emergency instructions that said to ship the samples as priority overnight. I definitely did NOT trust that as it was holiday time so off I set on the 18 hour round-trip drive to the lab in Whitesboro Texas!
Upon arrival at exactly 12am Saturday morning, Dec 21, Dr. Walker took in my baby’s samples and gave my delulu self a tour of the lab. The work they do and all of the pictures they have of the animals they have cloned is so fascinating!
I received an email on Jan 5, 2025 that the process for the cell culturing of Mr. Potato’s biopsy samples is complete and I am so happy to eventually (hopefully in the very near future) have a Mr. Potato #2 running around! No one can replace my soul pup, but thank you ViaGen Pets for giving me the opportunity to at least have a part of him back one day! Maybe then my broken heart can start to heal