Getting a puppy was my husband Justin’s idea. But the second I saw this beautiful Boston terrier, who had flown from his breeder in Arkansas to our home in Miami in March 2017, I fell in love. Clever, loving and stubborn, Lucas was so much more than a dog. He became my soulmate, and I couldn’t bear for us to be apart.When I was hospitalised with hepatitis a few months after his arrival, I missed Lucas so much that I persuaded the nursing staff to let him stay by my side. He had an extraordinary ability to sense my emotions and was a constant source of comfort. Over the years, the two of us visited more than 30 countries together. I couldn’t imagine life without him.But a week after his seventh birthday we found out he had lymphoma. It was devastating; I was frantic, determined to find a solution. We looked into a bone marrow transplant, but that needed a compatible donor.We hoped Lucas’s brother from the same litter might be a fit. When that wasn’t possible, we had another idea: cloning. Initially, this wasn’t to replace Lucas, but to create a genetically identical sibling who could serve as a compatible donor.But there wasn’t enough time for a clone to be created – Lucas died 27 days after his diagnosis. I was bereft, sitting with him for hours not knowing how I could go on. Cloning felt like a life raft: Lucas’s body might have died, but perhaps his spirit hadn’t gone.The fact that it would cost $50,000 (nearly £40,000) was irrelevant. I swiped my credit card without even thinking about it. Luckily, I run my own successful business, so I was able to pay off the bill in full. But, even if it had cost a million dollars, I would have somehow found the money.A clinic takes a tissue sample, reproduces new cells from it, places one of those cells in the nucleus of a female dog’s egg and then creates an embryo. A surrogate carries the embryo, and a genetically identical puppy is born. Cloning animals isn’t legal in the UK, except for scientific research purposes, but com