Hi!
I'm Trace!
And I'm a clone of Trace.
We're exactly the same.
Or not really at all.
Howdy Islanders, Trace here for DNews.
Yes, it's really me.
Cloning has come a long way since the famous sheep clone of 1996.
Now, for only tens of thousands of dollars, you too can clone your pet so you'll never
have to learn to love again.
But c'mon.
Cher would be disappointed in you.
Cloning pets has been going on for years.
The first reported cloned pet was a cat named "Little Nicky" born to a Texas woman in late-2004.
It set her back fifty grand, but she claimed she got her friend back.
Now, only 12 years later, firms are promising to clone dogs for twice that price, but can
also clone cows, pigs and horses!
How it works is simple: DNA is taken from a cell of your deceased Fido, and inserted
into a donor doggie egg cell which is then in-vitro fertilized into a surrogate mom dog.
Two months later, (if all goes well) you have a puppy Fido clone!
The thing is, it's not actually Fido…
Sure, Fido (or Fluffy's) genes would be exactly the same, but genetics are not 100-percent
of an organism -- especially when it comes to personality.
A lot of who we are is shaped by our life experiences!
So, the discussion is really about nature versus nurture.
According to the FDA's advisories on cloning, "Temperament is only partly determined by
genetics."
So, a dog, cat, horse, or whatever... has learned to love or be afraid of things based
on experiences -- the same as you!
A clone of you might not see Arachnophobia at your Aunt's house when you were six, so
wouldn't develop a fear of spiders!
Like…
some people did.
Or to bring it back to pets, if your original dog say, injured itself on a merry-go-round,
it might learn to avoid them in the future; the clone would not have learned that lesson
and thus would maybe love merry-go-rounds!
Cause who doesn't?!
As the FDA put it, a clone of a calm horse, "would have to have exactly the same life
experiences as [the] original horse in order to have the same temperament."
The thing is, there aren't really any studies with cloned pets, because more people clone
livestock, but these issues definitely play out.
For example, a couple who got two clones of their dog Melvin told NPR, "[one of the clones]
is more of a loner."
I.E.
-- it’s not exactly the same, but similar.
The clone of a famous Brahmin bull named Chance (the clone was named Second Chance) looked
the same, slept in the same place, and had similar quirks when eating, but was not nearly
as docile -- it threw and gored it's owner, putting him in the hospital twice!
And in a 2003 study of cloned pig behavior, they found cloned pigs raised in the same
environment didn't have the same behaviors.
And in a 2010 study that looked at the behavior of cloned cows, they found discrimination
in the herd, clones favored each other's company over cows produced by artificial insemination…
creepy.
Ultimately, cloned pets will never have the exact same experiences with the exact same
results as your original pet.
So sure, you can clone Dagger Thunderfang, but he's not going to be the same little guy.
And, honestly, in part that's probably because of us too!
If you spent years training your dog as a teenager, then replaced that dog with a clone
when you're 30, the clone would need years of training as well, but because you're not
the same person you were then the clone would get trained differently.
It's a different animal!
Even if Dagger looked the same (and there's no guarantee that he will) you can learn to
love him again, or just save 100,000 dollars and go get a rescue.
They need love too.
If you love the cutest animals, even pandas…
Animal Planet has a great show called Panda Republic, I've been watching it on Animal
Planet Go, and they're damn cute.
You can watch it too, or any other Animal Planet show -- just download Animal Planet
GO at your app store, or use the link in the description.
Have you ever wondered how they make new dog breeds?
I'm sure you have.
Don't worry, we have a video about that here.
Would you clone your pet?
Tell us in the comments and please subscribe so you get more DNews everyday!