This is pathetic! I understand wanting to have a treasured furbaby supposedly returned to you but clones are NOT the original dog!
There are certain dogs who’ve been in my life that I would love to have back alive and healthy. But part of loving a dog or dogs is the knowledge that you will outlive them. Its a sad fact. Trying to bring a dog back via cloning is wrong on so many levels.
First, expecting a cloned dog to be the original dog is not fair to him or you. There are so many experiences you shared that built the bond between you that the clone has not experiences. Yes, the clone can look like your beloved furbaby but he or she is NOT the dog you love.
Second, there are so many needy dogs in shelters and with rescue groups that creating a clone seems wasteful. Unlike responsible breeding, cloning is not done to improve a specific breed. Dogs are cloned to serve the emotional needs of the humans.
Thanks to the Associated Press for this article.
Company offers to clone dogs for 5 highest bidders
By MARCUS WOHLSENSAN FRANCISCO (AP) A Northern California biotech company announced Wednesday that it will clone dogs for the five highest bidders in a series of online auctions. Some ethicists condemned the offer, fearing it could lead to human clones.
Opening bids start at $100,000 for the service being offered by Mill Valley-based BioArts International. The cloning process is to be performed by a South Korean scientist who suffered international disgrace after being found to have faked research.
BioArts chief executive Lou Hawthorne formerly ran Genetic Savings & Clone, which offered to clone pet cats for $50,000 but folded in 2006 because few were willing to pay so much.
But Hawthorne said in a phone interview that another service his old company provided the storage of pet DNA for future possible clones showed him the market for dog clones was strong.
“The average dog owner has a different relationship with his dog than the average cat owner,” Hawthorne said. “The level of intensity on the dog side just dwarfed what we saw on the cat side.”
To conduct the clonings, BioArts has partnered with a South Korean research team that recently created three clones of Hawthorne’s family dog, Missy, who died in 2002.
