asking because I heard a story about it on the radio when getting lunch and I thought it was the dumbest shit I’ve heard all day. people are paying $50k to clone their dead dogs?? bro they are like $50 at the pound just get a stray…
the researcher being interviewed relayed a story about how this woman got her pet horse cloned but, upon the clone’s birth, she was like “uhh I expected you to keep it until it was at least a few years old?? i don’t want a BABY clone” ngjrgthjrdgfh
Paris Hilton cloned her chihuahua into two dogs??
no one knows where they get the ‘breeding’ dogs?? apparently they ‘rent’ the dogs from breeders across the country?? and also ‘rent’ the egg donor dogs?? seems pretty fucked up!!!
anyways here if you’re interested: https://www.viagenpets.com/
this is the specific NPR podcast I was listening to on the radio (it’s the most recent ‘Should You Clone Your Dog’): https://www.npr.org/podcasts/478859728/think
the researcher’s article in the New Yorker which is also a good read: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/07/01/would-you-clone-your-dog
It’s possible to see dog cloning as merely an extension of what is already a bizarre and highly unnatural process. In Fort Worth, Texas, I met a clone of a dog called Eudoris. The clone’s owner, Jeff, who didn’t want his last name used, was on the phone as I approached, but Eudoris 2—or E2, as he’s known—turned to look at me. His body was shaped like a German shepherd’s, but he lacked the swayed back of the kennel-club German-shepherd lines, whose hind legs buckle in a way that people liken to frog legs. E2’s face was more vulpine, too. I made a sound of greeting to him, and he folded his ears back. Within half a minute, he had turned his rump toward me beseechingly, the universal dog body language for requesting a scratch above the tail.
The original Eudoris was a mix of a Belgian Malinois and a Dutch shepherd, and had been bred by Joshua Morton, a trainer of tactical working dogs, who felt that Eudoris was the ideal specimen. He had ViaGen clone him, and not just once. Thirty-five clones have been made from Eudoris so far. Jeff got E2 as a protection dog for his wife, who travels frequently to compete in rodeos. E2 was their second Eudoris clone. The first, E4, drowned in an irrigation ditch four months after they got him. Jeff and Morton felt that E4 was so special that they sent some of his tissue to ViaGen. Since then, Morton has used E4’s cells to clone yet another line of dogs, which he dubs the Red Squadron Myrmidons, called M1, M2, and so on. “The DNA of M1 is the same as the DNA of E1 through E-whatever,” Jeff said. “And the same as Eudoris Actual, the biological Eudoris.” Hearing his name, E2 began wagging his tail.
bro cloned his dog 35 TIMES??? ‘drowned in an irrigation ditch four months after they got him’ is doing a lot of leg work in that last paragraph.
anyways, discuss - would you clone your dog/outdoor cat after it gets mauled by a coyote or tire/horse/ferret??? why? is this not real ‘All that is holy is profaned’ hours???
In abstract I don’t really think it’s more or less ethical than any breeding (which is its own bundle of concerns) and yet…
This proves that these pet owners don’t really love their pets. They love the idea they’ve built in their head of their pets, the actual animal themselves is a vehicle to express a purely ideological form of “”“love”“” that has nothing to do with character or personality.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing listening to the story while driving & even the researcher being interviewed and the host were saying about as much - that a lot of these people who clone their pets are looking for the EXACT same dog/cat/etc that they’ve built up in their head and thus, when asked ‘is the clone the exact same personality wise??’ they’ll be like “yep!” even though its not likely the case. The horse example brought up by the researcher was really about that, the owner of the horse was clearly in love with the adult horse she’d had for years - not the foal, so when it was born she was apparently like “uhh I was expecting you to keep it for a few years…”
You’re right that it really isn’t less ethical than commercialized breeding
funny enough I really like my dog’s phenotype, but he’s got some behavioral issues from before we adopted him. it’d be nice to have a fresh start lol.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true for every pet owner who would do this. It can easily be a coping mechanism. They lost a loved one but that loved one “lives on” in the clone, while still understanding the clone isn’t actually that loved one but a new being to love.
But at that price, your idea is definitely likely.