Barbra Streisand reveals she cloned her dog to create two new pets

A photo posted on Barbra Streisand's Instagram of the two cloned puppies and her third pet dog, a distant cousin. Photo / Instagram

Barbra Streisand has revealed that she has cloned her dog, with two puppies produced from her old dog Samantha.

Samantha, a 14-year-old Coton du Tulear, died in 2017.

Before Samantha died, Streisand had cells taken from her mouth and stomach, and her two new dogs, Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett, are the result of the cloning, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Their names reflect the colours she dressed them in, to tell them apart.

"They have different personalities," Streisand says. "I'm waiting for them to get older so I can see if they have her [Samantha's] brown eyes and seriousness."

View this post on Instagram

Happy New Year from my three girls... Pink, Blue & Violet.

A post shared by Barbra Streisand (@barbrastreisand) on Jan 1, 2018 at 6:34pm PST

Her third dog is a distant cousin of Samantha's. A breeder brought the dog, whose mother had been named Funny Girl, and Streisand was smitten. She adopted the new dog and called her Miss Fanny, which is how Fanny Brice's dresser refers to the character in the movie.

The 75-year-old actress, in an interview with Variety at her Malibu home, posed with the three pets and joked that she wanted the article headlined: "Send in the clones".

Cloning of animals is no longer rare, although it is generally an expensive procedure.

The first mammal to be cloned was Dolly the sheep, in 1996.

Polo stables use cloning on an industrial scale, to reproduce their finest ponies. It is not permitted, however, with racehorses.