Would You Pay $50,000 To Clone Your Dog?

Trouble and the cloned dog, Double Trouble.
Trouble and the cloned dog, Double Trouble.

Would you pay $50,000 to clone your beloved dog? What if it cost less? So many questions arise as technology and science get cheaper and cheaper.

But no matter how much it will devastate me when Max and Remy leave this Earth, and no matter how much I would LOVE to have them back, I would just think about what $50,000 would do if it went to helping rescue dogs.

Check out this video from Anderson Cooper of a woman who had her dog, Trouble cloned and named the clone, Double Trouble.

As you can see in the photo, the two dogs don’t even look that alike. And the reality of cloning is that it doesn’t replicate the personality, both good and bad, that go into making your pup, your pup.

Let’s hope this isn’t the wave of the future.

— Kenn

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TaxiLab
TaxiLab
12 years ago

I watched this show on TLC. All the people, including this woman, welcomed the dog with “do yoh remember me?” They are clones for heaven’s sake. Not the same dog. These people came across as nuts on the show. As much as I miss Moose, I know his clone wouldn’t be him. And like you said, $50,000 could really help a lot of rescue dogs!!!

Lfmiller
Lfmiller
12 years ago

This makes me so sad. I know what it’s like to lose a beloved pet and miss them madly. That said, there are thousands upon thousands of homeless animals in need of loving homes! Grieve your loss, adopt a new love, and donate any money you’d spend on ‘cloning’ to spay/neuter initiatives and rescues!

Trish
12 years ago

I miss my beloved Scruffy so much  still cry 8 years later.  But $50,000 would help so many other animals….and if I cloned her she wouldn’t be the same dog.  Specific events shape your dog’s personality, something as small as a thunderstorm when it’s a puppy could shape it’s fear of loud noises and subsequent behavior.  It’s the butterfly effect.  You can’t recreate every event in the past that shaped your dog’s personality.
For instance, my Scruffy was a rescue we adopted at the age of 2. The first 2 years of her life were a mystery to me. If I had her cloned, the influence of her first family would be absent and she would be an entirely different dog.

Danger S. Jones
12 years ago

That puppy doesn’t look anything like the ‘original’ and it’s already the same size. Looks like a scam to me.

Anonymous
Anonymous
12 years ago

You obviously understand a lot about cloning…

Rob Levinson
12 years ago

Well, viewing it from a different angle, how is this any different than getting a dog from a breeder? People buy purebreds because they have a certain expectation of behavior and appearance, right?  Cloning is just another method of having a dog of the type you want born to order.  With a clone, you wouldn’t just get “similar”, you’d get “extraordinarily similar”.

As for cost, you can never play the “what else would that have paid for” game with new technologies.  Every cutting-edge technology costs many times what it does later, early adopters of boutique technology are paving the way for future mass consumption at lower cost.  Remember when the first consumer-level DVD players sold for nearly $800?  Now they’re $50.  Before much longer, a cloned puppy will be mainstream, you might even order one from a catalog… and the cost for the same purebred might even be lower than from the limited-supply breeding of Champion parents.

I’m all for adoption and think it’s the better choice from a moral perspective… but that does not mean that someone who wants a purebred should be chastised.  One of my dogs is a rescue and I have fostered, so please don’t think I’m a “buy only from breeders” snob.

Anonymous
Anonymous
12 years ago
Reply to  Rob Levinson

It’s around 49k USD different, meaning you could buy 50 purebreeds instead of buying hope for reincarnation…

WHEN (if ever) it’s mainstream, then yes – it could be a good way to make sure you get a purebreed. But right now, it’s simply “I have too much money” behavior

Rob Levinson
12 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

Skipped the entire middle paragraph, huh?

Anonymous
Anonymous
12 years ago
Reply to  Rob Levinson

nope, not really… it just didn’t add to the context, imho

Rob Levinson
12 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

I thought it hit the context spot-on.  When the cost of a thing is the subject, and the point being that it’s “early adopter” technology, there will always be some people interested in paying that high price knowing that in a few years it will be much lower.  If nobody ever did that, we’d never have the technology at an affordable price.

So what if she spent $50K… it’s *her* money, you didn’t write the check, and it’s really bizarre for any dog lover to begrudge money that another spends on their pet.  

What’s your next rationalization?  That a vet bill of $1000 is too high and the dog should be put down because that money could have paid adoption fees for two rescues?

I usually enjoy The Dog Files, but I think the inference of this article judging someone for money they’ve spent is inappropriate.

As dog lovers, we should be celebrating this kind of technology.  If you could be guaranteed that your dog would not have inherited hip dysplasia, gastric torsion, cancer, premature cataracts, or any of the other tragic genetic problems, wouldn’t you want that?  A cloned dog whose source was genetically clean would be exactly that kind of guarantee and would put the horrible puppy mills out of business.

Kenn Bell
12 years ago
Reply to  Rob Levinson

You’re putting way to much thought into one article. Yes, I think spending $50,000 for a clone of your dog that doesn’t even look like your dog or act like it is crazy.
4 million dogs at euthanized every year in America. Instead of rescuing a new one, she spent $50,000 on one. She can do whatever she wants with her money and I can form any opinion I want about it.

And you can have your own opinion too.

Markr64
Markr64
12 years ago

simple answer – no.

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