Lady clones five pups from her pit bull.
- Thread starter SmexyPibble
- Start date
It may just be an artifact of the photo and the dog's build, but she does look too thin!
As for BYB, well, yes. Though it is presumed, with the sort of money that goes into this that the dogs will be better cared for and more desirable, and in theory, at least, the result will be more like the gene parent. Though, as I pointed out, because of womb conditions and epigentic factors (which they haven't figured out how to transfer correctly, though they do transfer in normal breeding) the result will be more like a sibling from an inbred line than an identical twin, regardless of the actual DNA.
I'm not sure why I'm defending this, except that it doesn't strike me as BYB equivalent . . . again, theoretically, if the gene partent didn't have inborn problems, either will the pups . . . though the technology is still veyr flawed.
My problem with it, with pets (not bloodstock or champion animals) is the expectation that you will get "the same dog." I don't believe that any pet owner would spend this sort of money unless they believed, on some level, that they were resurrecting their pet. Just like Fido, except younger and without Fido's memories, but Fido nonetheless. That simply isn't true, and I feel that down deep, this sort of cloning is a scam on the owner and unfair to the resulting animal, who will not be Fido, but will be expected to be Fido, and will always be compared to Fido. Its the same reason, thoough this possibility is far worse, that I object to the idea of people cloning dead children.
As for BYB, well, yes. Though it is presumed, with the sort of money that goes into this that the dogs will be better cared for and more desirable, and in theory, at least, the result will be more like the gene parent. Though, as I pointed out, because of womb conditions and epigentic factors (which they haven't figured out how to transfer correctly, though they do transfer in normal breeding) the result will be more like a sibling from an inbred line than an identical twin, regardless of the actual DNA.
I'm not sure why I'm defending this, except that it doesn't strike me as BYB equivalent . . . again, theoretically, if the gene partent didn't have inborn problems, either will the pups . . . though the technology is still veyr flawed.
My problem with it, with pets (not bloodstock or champion animals) is the expectation that you will get "the same dog." I don't believe that any pet owner would spend this sort of money unless they believed, on some level, that they were resurrecting their pet. Just like Fido, except younger and without Fido's memories, but Fido nonetheless. That simply isn't true, and I feel that down deep, this sort of cloning is a scam on the owner and unfair to the resulting animal, who will not be Fido, but will be expected to be Fido, and will always be compared to Fido. Its the same reason, thoough this possibility is far worse, that I object to the idea of people cloning dead children.
That is just it. As much as I adore Dekka.. I would NEVER clone her. IF she was some supreme champion that should be cloned for the betterment of dogdom (lol and we are not going on her opinion of herself) I could never keep the clone. Someone else would have to. It would be an eerily similar dog, but not the same dog.
I agree that I wouldn't do this to try to resurrect my beloved dog. But doing it to learn about nature vs nurture is very attractive. I always wonder which behaviors in my dog are inherent in him and which behaviors are the result of my good (or bad) training. Have a puppy with his exact DNA would be an interesting place to start improving my puppy raising and training skills as I could modify the parts of my training program that I am unsure of and see what a different environment creates.
For myself this is still pretty selfish, but extrapolate to a working dog breeding program and now we're talking something really useful. Improving raising and training of police, SAR, service dogs, etc will reduce the number of "failures" from these programs which reduces the number competing for pet homes. It also reduces the cost of these dogs which would allow groups to place more of them at a lower cost. That's good for all of us who benefit from working dogs, especially the handicapped who are on waiting lists for service dogs.
For myself this is still pretty selfish, but extrapolate to a working dog breeding program and now we're talking something really useful. Improving raising and training of police, SAR, service dogs, etc will reduce the number of "failures" from these programs which reduces the number competing for pet homes. It also reduces the cost of these dogs which would allow groups to place more of them at a lower cost. That's good for all of us who benefit from working dogs, especially the handicapped who are on waiting lists for service dogs.
I don't know that it would really reduce the number of failures. A lot of the part where a working dog prospect flunks out has to do with a temperament problem, too soft for PP, not enough drive for this or that, dog reactive, etc. These personality traits, which can be modified by training, have shown themselves repeatedly to not be reproducable by cloning (like the nice bull with the clone from hell).
The problem is that genetically similar doesn't mean having the exact same "nature," as we are slowly discovering. Things that are environmenal or quasi-environmental have a big impact, but can be attributed to "nuture" either.
Womb conditions and gene activation are examples . . .
If I cloned Sarama, the dog would have her DNA, look similiar, and probably have similar temperment and innate abilities. But not only could i not replicate her early upbringing, since I don't know what it was, and even if I did I probably couldn't make it exactly the same, but she would be born from a different mother, under different conditions. Moreover, the genes that are switched on and off in Sarama would likely be scrambled, some on, some off, that were the other way around. That can make a very big difference in health and behavior. So it wouldn't even be as useful for a nuture study as it would seem.
Womb conditions and gene activation are examples . . .
If I cloned Sarama, the dog would have her DNA, look similiar, and probably have similar temperment and innate abilities. But not only could i not replicate her early upbringing, since I don't know what it was, and even if I did I probably couldn't make it exactly the same, but she would be born from a different mother, under different conditions. Moreover, the genes that are switched on and off in Sarama would likely be scrambled, some on, some off, that were the other way around. That can make a very big difference in health and behavior. So it wouldn't even be as useful for a nuture study as it would seem.
Someday people will start cloning their kids... -sighs-
If you notice in the picture... one of the puppies has a blaze... guess that one will be one of the "service dogs" since it's not just like Booger...
If you notice in the picture... one of the puppies has a blaze... guess that one will be one of the "service dogs" since it's not just like Booger...
Probably. They want a double, not a descendant, or a "similar" dog.
You know, someone mentioned "spookily" like the gene donor. I think that's exactly what it would be like. Enough alike to be creepy, yet knowing its not the same, and yet wanting to bleieve that it is. I formed my opinions about cloning animals prior to the incident below, but I think I should share.
One of my cats, Bago, died last summer. A few months later, we were in PetsMart, and Mike called me over to where the cats were up for adoption. "Look, this is creepy. That cat looks like Bago." It DID look like Bago. Predominately white, with a very thick, velvety short coat with orange spots (though not precisely in the same places), the same very round head and cobby build. This one had a full length tail, but Bago had lost half his tail in some sort of accident before I got him. Moreover, it had the same mannerisms, the same exact eye color. It was like looking at his twin brother, his clone, his doppelganger. If someone had said that was Bago's clone at that moment, I might have believed them. Other than being MUCH younger than Bago (and yes, Bago was fixed) this was as close to a duplicate as you'd ever see. (I don't know if he hated vets as much though, I hope not for the sake of whomever adopted him).
I did NOT adopt that cat. I found him vaguely . . . not repulsive, but disturbing, to see an animal that looked SO MUCH like a beloved pet that I had held while he died. (Admittedly, if he'd been in a kill shelter, rather than a rescue, I might have had to take him . . . ). We didn't go into hold him either, for fear that he would turn out to be like Bago in how he interacted with humans. We wanted him, in a way, but we were also kind of scared of him. When Bago died I said I didn't want another white and orange cat (we got a black one) and here was exactly what I was afraid of when I said that . . . a virtual double.
If we'd gotten that cat, no matter what we named him, his name would have been Bago. We would have expected him to act the same way, even though we would know it wasn't the same. I'd wonder why he didn't curl up in the small of my back when I was sleeping, I'd worry about him trying to murder the vet. Even though they may not have been related, the resemblance was so strong. It was like seeing a ghost . . .
Now imagine if that cat HAD been Bago's clone, and I had paid a whole lot of money for him to come into existence . . . how much more . .. well, creepy would that be?
