BS: Cloning pets

Subject: BS: Cloning pets
From: Joseph P
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 09:45 AM

here

Its nice to see technology being put to good use!

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 10:14 AM

But they're a different color from the mother.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Joseph P
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 10:20 AM

They aren't a clone of the mother...

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: SharonA
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 10:53 AM

Right, Joseph. The article says that the embryos created by the scientists were implanted into the surrogate mother dogs. No genetic connection to the mother dogs whatsoever (which is, ummm, what surrogate means...). Yap!

How ironic that the cells were taken from Booger's ear. (And here I thought boogers were in noses!) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Bee
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 12:02 PM

Oh to be that rich!

I'd never do this, myself, rich or not. My dog was a wonderful girl, I loved her and miss her very much. Another dog, cloned from her cells, would not be her, and it's highly unlikely I could recreate the experiences that formed her personality. Many circumstances of her formative years could not be replicated. We live in a different environment. We are fifteen years older than when she was a puppy. Our lifestyle is somewhat changed. Our cat at the time was an influential companion; we have different cats with different personalities.

I'd be afraid I'd fail a cloned replica, expecting her to be the same as our old dog, and disappointed when she wasn't. And in that case, I'm much better off rescuing another mutt that I won't have some set of expectations for, and can let mature into a different if equally loved companion.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: jacqui.c
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 12:25 PM

Too true Bee.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 04:24 PM

I saw the documentary of a farmer who loved his dearly departed prize bull. The personality of the bull had been peacful beyond belief.

He had the bull cloned and was eventually attacked savagly by the cloned bull three times before the clone was put down. The last attack involved tearing off the farmer's scrotum.

Clearly more goes into life and love than genetic code.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 06:27 PM

I was just thinking of the same story, Don. That reproduction bull was one nasty customer, but the story itself is difficult to come by. It took some digging, though I see that Ira Glass did a This American Life (Showtime) story last year. Most of the stories that show up now are about Glass's story.

From a CBS web site:

(CBS) In taking a chance on an aging bull named Chance, veterinarians at Texas A&M University say they've achieved a cloning milestone, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod.

Ralph Fisher never thought he'd get another Chance. "We knew he was old, and that he was dying," the bull's owner explains. "And we just thought he was gone forever."

A mild mannered screen star, Ralph and Sandra Fisher built a life and a portrait-taking business with Chance until he died three months ago. But, now there's Second Chance. (What else would you call a clone of a 21-year-old Brahman bull named Chance?)

"The head is the same, the eyes are the same," Sandra notes. "It's not Chance's son -- it's Chance."

Not ready to say goodbye to Chance, the Fishers called on the team of veterinarians to inject some of the steers' skin cells into a donor egg stripped of its DNA. According to Texas A&M's Mark Westhusin, "He's the first because he's probably the oldest donor that has ever been produced. We think he's also the only adult male that has ever been cloned."

The odds on this "game of chance" were 189 to 1 -- 189 different cells were injected into 189 different eggs before the process took and the embryo developed to term.

"I guess he's been reincarnated," Ralph says. "But we hope he'll do exactly what he did the first time. Be a good pet, a business associate."

He calls the strange reunion "cutting-edge, tear-jerkin', good Texas stuff." And for now, he and Sandra are thanking God, thanking science, and not asking too many questions.

The Atlantic Monthly had an article about the Glass program and this refers to the bull story:

Then there's the rancher who loves his one-of-a-kind, tourist-attracting bull ("Chance") so much that he clones him (creating "Second Chance"). The man is said to have learned a gentle lesson about unintended consequences after the clone gores him in the testicles. But actually he doesn't seem to have learned much of anything. He still believes Second Chance will be bankable, once the bull gets the testicle-goring out of his system. Mostly, the rancher seems either economically needy or a bit touched.

Meanwhile, in the original story, this woman doesn't have one replacement of her beloved pit bull male, she now has five versions. And the dynamic will change considerably with five pit bull males in the house. Even if they're sweet, they're very strong and stubborn and someone is going to want to be the alpha dog in that pack. I wonder if this woman is up to it?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Bee
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 07:06 PM

I am, rather gruesomely, thinking of The Monkey's Paw...

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Sorcha
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 10:15 PM

No. Just No.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 10:45 PM

I once saw a photograph in a science publication of a cat that had been cloned from another cat. The second cat looked quite different. The pub. said that was to be expected and that most people don't understand cloning. Me among them.

I don't believe the story about the farmer and the bull. It's just too pat.

I used to have a coworker that came from a long line of Kansas farmers. His family told a story of an forebear who had a bull. Every day the farmer went out and fed the bull. One day, after this went on for 17 years, the bull suddenly attacked him and killed him.

That was the story, anyhow.

With tales like this in circulation, perhaps quite true, rural people are bound to wonder if it's worth it to clone even a 'gentle' bull. Maybe if somebody does it for free...

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Becca72
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 08:13 AM

I think the whole thing is just plain creepy. I loved my little calico kitty Mara Jade, but she's gone now and life moves forward. I have happy memories of the 13 years we spent together and can't imagine having her cloned.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 10:08 AM

The story about the cloned bull is true. It first appeared on a television news magazine somewhere. Might have been on CBS Sunday Morning, something along those lines. It has been difficult to find the older source material because so many people have since then written about Ira Glass's This American Life telling of the story on his new Showtime program (the radio program has been around for years). I suppose the thing to do is find a You Tube clip. This is just promotion of the story. This clip has a description of the attack by "Second Chance."

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Gulliver
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 12:49 PM

But where is it all going to end? Surely not with pets...?

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 02:40 PM

Cloning has possibilities in the commercial breeding of plants and animals, but trying to replicate a deceased pet will lead to disappointment.

My succeeding pets each have had much to teach me; the pet that has passed on is a memory to treasure, but I have appreciated its successors and their personalities.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Leadbelly
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 03:17 PM

The character, behaviour and-above all-the soul of an beloved animal cannot be cloned.

Manfred

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Sorcha
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 04:50 PM

I'm with Becca on this one. Just creepy. And they are NOT going to clone my MOTHER either!

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Newport Boy
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 07:44 AM

The owner, Bernann McKinney, has previous form. She once manacled a Mormon for sex!

Full story here

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: SINSULL
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 08:04 AM

Makes me wonder if the entire cloning story is true. A very strange lady. And the cloned dog may be the one she stole when it was set to be put down after mauling somebody. Curiouser and curiouser.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Bee
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 10:58 AM

Oh, I imagine the cloning story is true, but I wonder if this company has really solved any of the problems with cloned mammals, which so far have been prone to dying very young and having serious health issues. The technology is still imperfect.

Natural clones (twins, etc.) don't have those problems, likely because no one has sucked all the goodies out of the mother egg, and both sperm and egg are meant to produce a new critter/human, not forced as in current cloning tech, from a skin or other body cell.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 11:46 AM

Yuck! Also, yuck that they have now given the go-ahead to create cloned animals for food! Another reason to stay a vegetarian.

Subject: RE: BS: Cloning pets
From: Sorcha
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:35 PM

And this McKinney person was Miss World Wyoming! Wonders never cease! LOL