Cloning Dead Pets

Posted by Mia Carter Aug 7, 2008

File this one under sad and a bit disturbing....

A 57-year-old California woman named Bernann McKinney recently lost her pit bull terrier Boogey. Lost and sad and unable to heal from the loss, McKinney sold her house to pay the nearly $50,000 for the first-ever commercial cloning procedure which was performed by a company based in Seoul, Korea.

Fortunately for McKinney, she now has five black pit bull puppies - each a genetic twin of her beloved dog Boogey. At a press conference, McKinney explained, "It is a miracle for me because I was able to smile again, laugh again and just feel alive again."

Now, part of me feels terribly sorry for this woman. Losing a pet is a terrible experience. In some instances, the grieving is akin to that which you'd experience with the loss of a human friend or family member. But in 99% of cases, you work through the grief and move on as you carry with the memory of your beloved pet. It's rather pitiful that this woman simply could not cope the loss of her dog.

But what's really disturbing is the fact that this woman overlooked one very important factor: nature versus nuture. Scientists have found that it's experiences that mold personality - more so than nature in most cases. And those experiences begin before we're born, so even if you wanted to control them, you couldn't. So unfortunately, it's very unlikely that this woman will find her beloved Boogey in any one of those five cloned pups.

It would be a dream come true to bring our pets back from the dead. But it's simply not possible. Though hopefully, those beautiful puppy faces will ease her pain.