Best friends...again?

Most dedicated pet owners have had their share of animals and will agree with me that the hardest part about having pets, is grieving over them when they pass on. It would be amazing if our best friend could stay with us throughout our entire lifetime; unfortunately their life spans are just too short to be able to offer us unconditional companionship.

But what if there was a way to keep your best friend with you your entire life? BioArts International has developed techniques to clone and produce replicas of beloved past pets. The project started in 1998 and was intended to reproduce a beloved family dog, Missy. (Its title the "Missyplicity Project" in her honor). After millions of dollars were spent and years of research were conducted, the company was able to produce three Missy clones. However, coming to this point was not easy; no attempts were successful until 2006, when Dr. Woo Suk Hwang and his team of scientists created the first cloned dog, which they named Snuppy. Dr. Hwang was then successful at producing three Missy clones, named Mira (after a Korean myth of an all-powerful benevolent dragon), Chingu ("friend" in Korean) and Sarang ("love" in Korean). These puppies are now living happily at home with Missy's owners.

Not only was this scientific miracle possible for one lucky family, but also for five other online bidders. Currently four of the spots have been filled, but one remains. If you're contemplating this as an option, consider the price tag: $180,000. Yes, you read correctly, one hundred eighty-thousand dollars. That's a pretty big fee for a puppy. However, there are those dedicated (and wealthy) enough to shell out that amount of cash for the chance of a lifetime.

How does this work? The cloning process is divided into stages or steps, which result in the birth of a cloned puppy. The sequence is as follows: The first step is to take cells from the animal to be cloned in a process called gene banking. These are normal body cells which contains the animal's full set of genes. Then an egg is obtained from a female of the same species and is enucleated (its nucleus is removed and thrown away). Then the genes obtained during the banking process are inserted into the egg, a process called recombination. Then electricity is used to fuse the donor cell nucleus and egg together and chemicals are used to activate the embryo which will then begin to divide like a normal single-cell embryo(zygote). Finally, the embryo is transferred into the oviduct of a surrogate female and develops as a traditionally conceived embryo would. The surrogate then gives birth to her genetically unrelated cloned puppy.

Honestly, I'm a little torn on this issue. I, like all pet owners, have had animals that I wish I had been able to spend more time with. It would be amazing to have your best friend recreated to his exact personality and be able to share your entire life with the 'same' dog. However, this opens up the possibility for disaster among shelter dogs. Not only would they have to compete with pure bred dogs for adoption and loving homes, but now owners would be able to literally create their pets. I also feel that dog's lives are shorter than ours for a reason. That reason is its our job to touch (and be touched) by multiple dogs. I find the uniqueness of each dog to be its greatest attribute.

Personally I would never buy a dog from a breeder. Not only do I prefer the uniqueness of shelter dogs, but I also feel like I, as only a dog lover and owner, have no need (or the financial ability) to buy a dog with a perfect past. I have nothing against those who value the pureness of a dog, and I completely understand the desire. A relative of mine has a Mach 3 agility Papillion at home. She also trains puppies from breeders to be sold to a prospective owner interested in performing in dog competitions. The desire for breeder-sourced dogs is apparent and understandable. Yes, I know that was a little off-topic. But I just wanted to stress how important it is to be a shelter adopter.

The number of dogs euthanized in shelters each year is astronomical. A dog is euthanized every 9 seconds in America. Every nine seconds. I don't need to do the math for you. Just think about how many could be saved if more people adopted from there and didn't spend the time or money worrying about their pets papers. I'm a mutt and I'm proud of it. I'm also proud of my mutts and would never change anything about them. I worry that if this dog cloning somehow goes mainstream within my lifetime, there will be no hope for the shelter dogs. Perhaps it might eliminate the number of dogs abandoned or abused, but I highly doubt that. Designer dogs, breeders and now the possibility of clones are ruining it for the original mutts that I love so much.

I think the advance in science is amazing. However, I think instead of creating more dogs and spending millions of dollars in the process. We should be concentrating on the millions of dogs and millions of dollars we don't have paying for their care.

What do you think about it??