The cloning of dogs or cats is slowly becoming a completely normal reality. For now, you can encounter it mostly in Asian countries. It’s the companies in South Korea that are most famous for their business plans focusing on the grieving dog and cat owners. Here, the people who have just lost their pet, can have its twin cloned and this way, they can have it by their side forever.
A number of organisations for animal protection around the whole world is against the cloning of pets. They say, that same as with the cloning of people, the cloning of animals is unnatural and unethical. The Koreans, but also, for example, Americans and the British, however, see this differently and the legislature makes it possible for the pet owners.
With respect to high costs, which climb all the way to several millions of crowns, buying a clone of a deceased dog or cat is unavailable to most customers. Quite naturally, this brings up the question whether it is “normal” and whether it’s not a mere fashion fad.
Despite the strong bond that bound me to my two already deceased dogs, I don’t dare to give a definite answer.
It’s precisely the strong connection between the owner and his pet that the companies offering this service use as an argument while referring to psychological and traumatological methods, saying that getting a clone is one of the ways how to deal with the loss of a beloved animal friend. Is this an emotional game?
Leaving aside the question of trauma from a painful loss, which no doubt the death of a dog, cat, or a rodent family member is, there is yet another dimension to the whole business around cloning. Experts criticise the cloning companies for unethical conduct bordering on cruelty to animals, because it requires an operation of three dogs: the DNA donor, the eggs donor and of the surrogate mother.
How did it all start? It was the Afghan Hound Snuppy who became famous as the first dog clone. He was born in 2005 and lived to be ten years old. In order to confirm this “spectacular miracle”, they had more puppies cloned from his cells – three survived. Another famous clone is the police dog Trakr. Also in his case, the scientist were successful.
Since then, hundreds of cloned mostly dogs of various breeds are running around the world. Experts point out that this business is rather starting to resemble large “factories for animals”.
This trend still hasn’t arrived to the Czech Republic also because of the demandingness on technological equipment of the laboratories. In this area, however, the Czech scientist Helena Fulková achieved fame, when she managed to clone a lab mouse.
In our family, we always lasted without a dog for the maximum of a year, then we welcomed a new member into the pack, who was always unique in some way and inimitable. Therefore, we’ve never considered getting a clone :). What do you think about cloning?
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