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Get the Family Dog Cloned
Anonymous writes "Some of you may have seen 'The 6th Day,' the movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger a few years back. If you recall there was a 're-pet' cloning service to get your dog back if you ever lost them. Enter 'Best Friends Again': 'A US biotech company on Wednesday announced it will auction off the right for five dog owners to have their furry best friend cloned, with bidding starting at 100,000 dollars. "BioArts International ... will sell five dog cloning service slots to the general public via a worldwide online auction," the California-based biotech start-up said in a statement.'"
are Playboy bunnies.
wonder if I can clone them too...
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
If we can put a man on the moon, I should be able to get my dog cloned for under 100k.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Let's hope that this company has greater success than earlier ones...
(Yeah, I know that the wired article says "Dead cats", but Genetic Savings & Clone was also a dog cloning company)
Let's face it, you are going to have to invest the time to re-train the clone, so isn't genetically descended almost identical to genetically-identical in practical terms?
There is no promise your pet is going to be the same pet that left you. To me this spits in the face of nature. Not that I am against cloning, but to think you can bring a loved one... even in part back from the dead is a tragic notion.
I have seen this stuff before and remember the pet may not even come back looking the same. Even if they got it looking EXACTLY THE SAME, the memories, the personality, the... soul will not be the same.
All it will do is leave you missing your loved one more. Just let it go, and keep them in your heart. Mittens / Fido will always live on inside you *Yes yes sappy but it's true and you KNOW IT*
So how many deformed and killed 'non viable' cloned puppies does it take to produce a successful one.
(Can you tell I am totally against this.)
The cloning process is kind of lossy. A lot of mutations can occur in the process, and as a result the cloned animal is likely to be unhealthy.
I saw them try this with a bull in the first TV episode of This American Life. The results were not good.
Synopsis: The original bull was nice. The cloned bull was irritable, short-tempered and just not quite right. Also, he kicked the owner in the balls.
I suppose you could just take from that the irony that the cloned animal managed to block its cloner's own ability to reproduce conventionally. But you could also just note that cloned bull was really ugly. You probably won't get what you wanted, unless you delude yourself into thinking you have it.
I would rather get another dog and try to make his individual being love and respect me as the old one did and try to love and respect him for what he is. Cloning cheapens the value of the individual existence. The reason why people want copies is so they can forget about the original.
Because I was under the impression that cloning did not account for the individuality of each dog's coat. Another thread mentioned the irritability of a cloned bull but I doubt it was due to the cloning.
When it comes to dogs; my mother breeds, judges, and shows, a certain purebred; the bulk of good dog / bad dog behavior that owners see is largely governed by how much time the puppy had with its mother. Ideally it should be twelve weeks. This is not saying you can't breed in aggressiveness as it had been done to shepherds and the respectable breeders spent a generations (of dogs) trying to get it out.
The first few weeks in the care of a new owner will set the new puppy on his path to an individual personality. The key to getting a good dog versus a bad dog is : treat it nicely and give it space. If the new dog needs the reassurance of your company it will seek you out. Don't yell at the dog or around it. The pet is looking for acceptance and if you yell at your kids/spouse/tv etc it will affect the dog. About the "space" item, if a dog wants to get away the let it; provided of course its safe. I have seen more than one puppy returned as a nervous wreck to my parents because one kid or adult in the new owner family simply would not let the dog alone, the interesting side story is that these people took their kid to a psychiatrist who basically told them the kid was not mature enough for a pet but they tried anyway . They have their needs for rest too.
Am I against cloning pets or animals. Not if its used to protect a breed from extinction. I still would not have much qualms about it being done for the end owner. Now if cloning of pets is done for wholesale retail then that I would is nothing better than having mills. Worse is the number of bitches needed and who are basically abused to deliver the pups (I assume it still requires a womb)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
A Labrador retriever, that is. They all look more or less exactly the same, and have exactly the same friendly personality.
Or just brave the wilds of adopting a new random dog. There's already way too many of them for anyone's good, without cloning up more in the world.
These cloning fees should include a $1000 donation to a programme that neuters 20 other dogs. If we're going to clone biodiversity out of the gene pool, we might as well get aggressive. After all, it's a dog eat dog world.
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make install -not war
Maybe if we just had cloned dogs, and made all dogs sterile, we wouldn't have such a problem with the dog population.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
To most pet lovers, that cherished "once-in-a-lifetime" dog or cat should remain just that. In February of 2004, the AAVS (American Anti-Vivisection Society) commissioned Opinion Research Corporation to conduct a national survey to assess public opinion about cloning pets. Eighty percent of the respondents were not in favor of cloning companion animals or the selling of genetically altered animals as pets. But for the 13% of respondents that are in favor of pet cloning, financial issues may well be the obstacle.
Genetic Savings & Clone, a gene banking and cloning service for pets, is currently offering to store a treasured pet's genetic material in the hopes that the owner will take advantage of cloning that pet in the future. Currently the cost to "bank" a pet's DNA, or genetic material, with GSC (Genetic Savings & Clone) varies from $295 to $1,395 plus $100-$150 annually for storage fees. The cost for cloning is a different story. According to the GSC website, expect to pay $32,000. And to date they have only been successful with cloning cats.
Yet, for all of the technology and expense involved, exact replicas of cloned animals are not always produced. In fact, due to unusual genetics, calico cats will rarely produce clones that physically resemble the donor. Cloning opponents contend that an exact replica of a pet is impossible, as training, experience, and environment are keys to an individual's behavior and personality. Even worse animal that have been cloned often have severe health problems, and a short life expectancy.
The industry is almost totally unregulated and strong opinions on both sides of the cloning issue seek to educate the public about the benefits, or lack thereof, of pet cloning. While tremendous publicity accompanies cloning successes, the public rarely hears about animal cloning failures.
The greatest publicity surrounds the cloning of pets when actually the majority of cloning is intended for agriculture, biomedical research, and propagation of endangered species. But in all cases, there are potential commercial applications.
For example, HorseCloning.com will make a clone of your horse for $375,000 per 100 mares implanted plus a patent royalty fee of 15%, based on the estimated value of each clone. According to their web site information, "All sales are final," and "even though no one can guarantee a specific result, you could hit the jackpot." Last but not least, "due to the complexity of the science, results cannot be guaranteed."
The cloning science is similar in most species, although there are some challenges with the cloning of dogs. Dogs have poorly understood reproductive physiology compared to other species and fewer estrus cycles.
Basically, the cloning procedure begins with collecting the DNA of the animal to be cloned. The tissue is grown and the cells are preserved while being treated to prevent them from differentiating into a particular cell type (hair, skin, nerve cell).
Eggs are taken from random females for implantation, and the genetic material from these eggs is removed. Cells and eggs are fused together to become cloned embryos. Surrogate females are then hormonally treated to synchronize their fertile periods and are then implanted with the cloned embryos. In the best scenario, the surrogate pregnancy produces a live, healthy offspring.
While moral and ethical issues of cloning pets continue to be argued, both sides seem to be closer concerning the problem of endangered species. Betty Dresser, Director of the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans says, "Saving habitat may not be enough. Any tool for saving endangered species is important. Cloning is just another reproductive tool, like in-vitro
I have a rudimentary understanding of genetics, but I understand that telomeres are shortened with each cell division, and when they run out, no more cell division can occur. Essentially this is "old age". When an old dog is cloned, how long will the cloned puppy live? Until the telomeres can be lengthened before the initial cell division begins in the new lifeform, this seems like a cruel service. When we figure out how to lengthen telomeres in dogs, then we've pretty much got longevity treatments for humans, who can then live hundreds of years, and then not many people will be as concerned with cloning dogs as they will be about lengthening their lives.
Is a dog with a much longer lifespan. I really don't like to think that my little dog will only live 13 to 17 years, but a friend of mines bird will probably out live all of us 30 somethings.