Assuming it was perfected and affordable, would you want to have a pet of yours cloned, so you could have it almost forever?

Absolutely. We were just talking about this last night – we’d have Callie 1, then Callie 2, on down the line.

The dog would be no more the same dog you knew and loved than would a twin pup from the same litter who was separated at birth.

Cloned DNA creates neither memories, personality, nor psychology.

So, no, I would do no such thing. It would be an insult to the pet’s memory, and a grotesque abomination of what I’d lost.

You are right, that the dog would definitely not be the same dog at all, as far as personality was concerned.

Please keep in mind that Roy Rogers had his dog, Bullet, stuffed and put on display (next to his horse, Trigger) at the family museum.

Good point about the personality. But many personality traits are inherent in the breed and mine’s a true Heinz 57. There’ll never be another one like her. :(

Actually, the personality is really what I would want to be cloned on my beloved dog that has recently passed. So I guess my answer is, if the personality couldn’t be cloned as well, I don’t think I would want a clone. Seeing a dog that looked exactly like her, but didn’t have her mannerisms would weird me out.

If you raised her exactly as you did the original, she just might exhibit many of the same mannerisms as “the original.”

Keep in mind that you’ll see her again someday.

When your own life is over, I’ll bet a million bucks that she will be standing right next to the Pearly Gates, wagging her tail and waiting for you.

That would be my wish for you, anyway…

Thinking of it that way, then yes, I would clone her. What a great wish, and I happen to believe that also.

surprisingly, NO. I thought about this for a while before replying, a couple of hours of housework and it was in the back of my mind. I realized that I have known so many individual animals and can remember them distincly and just like friends, I don’t want the same one every time. I like getting to know them and discovering what their inner self is all about. Believe me, among those I have lived with there are favorites and some I didn’t bond with as well, but then that’s the beauty of it all. Even though I grieve terribly when they are no longer with me, I can’t be without at least two animals in my home at all times.

No, I would not do it to an animal any more than I would a loved human. Other than the hypothetical, I don’t think we will get to “Assuming it was perfected”.

Did you hear the This American Life story about the man who cloned his beloved prize bull? Here is an excerpt from the NY Times:

” In the first episode a rancher makes the unfortunate decision to have the family’s pet bull, Chance, cloned. (Like many “This American Life” tales, it’s a long story.) Second Chance — think Cujo with bad genes and very long, pointy horns — eventually gores Ralph, his owner, and badly. Ralph makes a nice little speech from his hospital bed about getting back on the bull, so to speak, Mr. Glass said, “but then there is this moment afterwards when there is this look of complete vulnerability and utter weariness that crosses his face.”

“That look gives you so much more information about the character than we could ever get across in the radio piece,” Mr. Glass said.”

@ Jack: I’m an atheist, so there’s no dog heaven in my future. This is my one chance. :)

Here is photographic proof showing why dogs go to Heaven.

@Jack No proof needed for me, but that was adorable.