A geneticist who couldn’t pet a dog without sneezing can now play fetch with one in Central Park, feed her peanut butter off a spoon, and let her sit in his lap. His allergies haven’t gone away. His dog just stopped setting them off.

That dog is Bailey, a beagle created by the biotech company Kindred Companion Sciences using CRISPR, the gene-editing technology that won its inventors a Nobel Prize. Bailey and her twin Alfie were born after scientists edited the gene responsible for producing Can f 1, the main allergy-causing protein found in dog saliva, hair, and dander, then transferred that edited genetic material into eggs carried by a beagle surrogate. Lab testing found no trace of the allergy-triggering protein in either pup’s saliva or fur, and when researchers pricked geneticist Matt Walker’s skin with extracts from the dogs, he didn’t react, even though he did react to samples from a poodle and a goldendoodle, breeds long assumed to be safer for allergy sufferers.

Why “Hypoallergenic” Dogs Have Never Fully Solved the Problem

This detail matters more than it might seem. Popular wisdom has treated low-shedding breeds like poodles and doodles as the go-to option for allergy sufferers who want a dog anyway. But shedding was never really the issue. Dogs produce allergy-causing proteins in their saliva and skin regardless of coat type, and those proteins end up on fur, furniture, and clothing whether or not a dog sheds heavily. A poodle can still trigger a reaction; it just spreads less visible hair while doing it.

Gene editing takes a fundamentally different approach: instead of managing how much allergen ends up in the environment, it aims to stop the dog from producing the allergen in the first place. That’s a meaningfully different strategy than breeding for coat type, and according to researchers, it’s the first time this specific gene has been successfully switched off in a living dog.

Don’t Expect One at the Shelter Anytime Soon

Kindred Companion Sciences says it hopes to eventually test the same technique across other dogs and breeds, potentially including service animals, to see if an allergen-free line can be developed more broadly. But researchers are candid that commercial availability is years away. Long-term health effects of the genetic edit still need monitoring, and the company has yet to figure out how to make the process affordable at scale. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan has also raised a concern worth sitting with: making allergy-free dogs commercially available could unintentionally reduce interest in shelter and rescue animals, which aren’t gene-edited and can still trigger allergic reactions.

Where That Leaves People With Dog Allergies Today

For the millions of people currently managing pet allergies without a gene-edited beagle waiting in the wings, the more immediate options remain allergy testing and allergen immunotherapy, treatment that works by gradually retraining the immune system to tolerate a specific allergen rather than waiting on a future biotech breakthrough. Sublingual immunotherapy delivers that treatment as daily drops taken under the tongue, personalized to a patient’s actual triggers, whether that’s pollen, dust mites, or pet dander from the dog already living in their house. It’s available through telemedicine platforms without the recurring in-person visits allergy shots typically require, which makes it one of the more realistic paths to relief for pet owners who don’t want to wait on the science catching up to their living room.

Gene-edited pets may eventually change what “hypoallergenic” really means. For now, the more practical fix for dog allergies is still working with what’s already available: identifying the trigger and training the immune system to tolerate it.

Watch NBC News’ full report on Bailey and Alfie.

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