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Full Version: Pet clonning becoming more common
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I was surprised to read that there is a pet cloning facility as near as Texas. For $1600.00 they will send you a kit to get a tissue sample. For $50,000.00 they will clone your pet.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/08/viagen-p...50000.html


I can understand not wanting to lose a pet. There are lots of arguments for and against using cloning to try and keep your pet with you. The thing that stands out for me is the genetic link to health problems. If your pet died young of a heart defect, the clone is going to suffer the same fate. You might be able to keep it going longer because you know about the problem, but is it fair to create an animal with a known defect.

Who has that kind of money to spend on a pet copy. Falling in love with a new pet is a healthy way to deal with grief and loss. 
I think the cloning facility is making money from exploiting people's pain. It seems a little unethical. 

I wonder about the dogs that are used as surrogate mothers. I wonder how they are treated and what sort of "retirement plan" do they have.

https://wtop.com/animals-pets/2018/03/cl...erinarian/

I am not the only one who wonders about the mother dogs.
Maybe pet cloning is the only way some people can feel right about getting another animal in their lives.
But surely they must know....or sense...that the cloned animal has a completely different Soul and personality from the one who passed?

Even feedback from those who have had their pets cloned, shows that happens every time.

I feel you are right about cloning genetic defects. That sounds highly likely. We already have too many inherited weaknesses and illnesses in animals from in-breeding, for the sake of retaining "breed standards".
The cloned dog is a perfect genetic copy of the original pet. Even if there are variations in how the genes are expressed, the clone will have the same genetic defects as the original pet. People are cloning pets that died from defects. They are just going to go through it again when the clone dies. 

We all have losses and we don't like them, but it is far healthier to let go and move on. A clone does not give back the thing that we miss the most, the relationship we had with the pet. It just gives us back a similar looking empty shell. The new pet could develop a wonderful personality and a strong bond with us, but there is no guarantee. We  would have as much chance with a new dog.

I seriously worry about the dogs that give birth to the clones. They will make them give birth to clone after clone as long as they can. They won't wait between pregnancies. That would be expensive. They will implant clones as often as they can.
What do you think will happen to these dogs when they can no longer give birth to clones? I don't picture them going to happy homes to live out their lives. They will have spent their whole lives being subject to procedures and then they will be killed.
There is no money to be made from keeping old worn out dogs around. 

It is a different kind of puppy mill, but from the point of view of the female dog it is still a puppy mill.