South Korean Scientists Clone Dog

Ebon Praetor writes "According to the BBC and Reuters, South Korean scientists have created the world's first cloned dog, an Afghan hound. The research purpose of the research is ostensibly to produce research animals and not for commercial purposes. Dogs are especially difficult to clone, but the scientists were able to extract DNA from a skin cell, inject it into an egg, and implant the egg into a surrogate mother."

Comments

Allow me to have a Bob Barker moment here...

[Rude Turnip]

I hold nothing but extreme vitriol towards people that breed dogs when there are so many cats and dogs that are out on the streets and in shelters needing good homes. Same goes towards any pet store that sells cats and dogs.

People, please spay or neuter your pets and don't allow your ego to perpetuate the suffering of homeless cats and dogs.

Cloning, breeding, who cares

[Dachannien]

Quoth the article: "Canine cloning runs contrary to the Kennel Club's objective 'To promote in every way the general improvement of dogs'," Phil Buckley, spokesman for the Kennel Club told the BBC News website.

But the KC does things like register particular breeds of dogs which, due to their popularity, have been improperly bred so that they develop a wide variety of health problems. Some breeds are even prone to genetic disorders even if they aren't inbred. So doesn't promoting the breeding of these susceptible dog breeds detract from the lives of those dogs?

And besides that, there are so many dogs out there that are euthanized because nobody can find homes for them. Doesn't intentionally breeding more dogs in such an environment make life worse (as in, dead) for the dogs that get euthanized?

Yes, I think that cloning animals to be pets is a bad idea, but aside from the multitude of failed clones, I don't get how that's any worse than breeding them. And at least the cloning scientists have a goal of improving the state of medicine for humans.