Cloning Your Pet
Do you love your pet so much that you want to clone it? Pet cloning is no longer confined to the pages of science-fiction; in fact, pet cloning and gene banking services have already been offered in the real world – and have attracted a lot of interest. Learn how much you can expect to spend if you decide to clone your pet in the future, as well as the alternatives that are available for pet owners who can’t bear to part with their favorite dog or cat.
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Step 1:
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Is cloning illegal?
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The subject of cloning has been a controversial topic in the news over recent years. Dolly the sheep was one of the first animals to be cloned. Now cloning is available to everyday pet owners. Genetic Savings and Clone - a company based in California - is the first to offer commercial pet cloning.
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Step 2:
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How much?
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The demand for pet cloning is large and growing. There have been multiple surveys that have been done. One out of four of the sixty million pet owning households would like to clone one of the pets that they have. So far the company only offers the cloning of felines. The price: about $50,000.00 per cat. "As we improve the efficiency we'll continue lowering the price until ultimately anyone with an exceptional pet can afford this technology."
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Step 3:
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Will it be like my old pet?
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If you want an exact duplicate of your pet, guess again. They might look alike, but the reality is that their personalities can be completely different. In fact, what most people want is the cloned pet to have memories of the old pet and that will never happen.
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Step 4:
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Religeous issues
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Religious leaders from Jewish, Islamic, and Christian faiths have called cloning "immoral". In fact, most pet owners we talked to were against it. "I just don't see a purpose in it, you can get another dog." "I would never actually clone my dog. It's a soul, man. It dies, that's it, it's over."
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Step 5:
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Adoption or cloning?
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If you're not ready to clone right away, Genetic Savings and Clone also offers to store your pets DNA. Bottom line, cloning pets could pose some long term health risks that we don't know about yet. Instead of cloning a pet consider adopting one from a shelter. There's millions of great pets available and they'll appreciate it even more.
For the Pet Report, I'm Mitch Wilder.
