Did anyone watch "I cloned my pet" on TLC?

[Discussing Labradoodles & Goldendoodles]

Did anyone watch this?I wish I had 50,000 to 100,000 dollars to clone my dog.I guess from what the owners said that their clone is the real deal.I better start saving up my pennies.The one thing i wonder though is,wont the serogate mother give some of her DNA,ect to the puppy.If so the puppy will not be the exact same dog as your old one.I dont know it was crazy.What are your thoughts on this and would you do it if you had at least 50,000 dollars to spare?

[F, Calla & Luca]

The surrogate doesn't give DNA to an already formed fetus. She would give DNA if she donated an intact egg. But just because a clone has the same DNA it does not mean it will have the same temperament , personality or what have you as the original dog.

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

I just finished watching it for the first time. Wow. I think those people are crazy. I do love my dog, but why would I spend all that money for a "clone"? Perhaps if I had $$$ and would not know what to do with all the cash, I would clone Monty. Just because I can do it. But why not getting a new pup? What's wrong with that? The puppies are all cute and how can you tell one gray colored blue-eyed great dane from another one? Seriously? I was telling my DH that I can find at least 5 clones of Monty here on DK. I would not be able to tell him apart from some other doodles here (for example Sharon's Monty) just based on the pictures.

The surrogate mother is just that. She has no contribution to the puppy's DNA since it is the whole embryo that's being inserted into the surrogate mother. I don't quite understand how the scientist arrive at an entire embryo from a dead dog, but that's a different story. On the other hand, I remember when a sheep named Lucy was cloned as the first animal in England. She did not live very long.

 

[F, Calla & Luca]

Here is how Dolly the sheep was cloned:

To make Dolly, researchers isolated a somatic cell from an adult female sheep. Next, they transferred the nucleus from that cell to an egg cell from which the nucleus had been removed. After a couple of chemical tweaks, the egg cell, with its new nucleus, was behaving just like a freshly fertilized zygote. It developed into an embryo, which was implanted into a surrogate mother and carried to term.

The lamb, Dolly, was an exact genetic replica of the adult female sheep that donated the somatic cell nucleus to the egg. She was the first-ever mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/cloning/whatiscloning/

[Bonnie and Kona]

F. You are a wealth of information and I am always grateful to read your helpful comments. Thank you for posting. ;o)

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

As a science person... the fact that this process worked amazes me... especially "the egg cell, with its new nucleus, was behaving just like a freshly fertilized zygote"

Crazy!

[Lynda Kamrath]

I don't think it is an embryo from a dead dog, it is a gene from the dog.  It IS the dogs DNA, not an embryo.  I think more of it has been going on than we know about, but we just hear about special cases.  Interesting to think about anyway.  What else do you think has been cloned besides a cow, a sheep, and now a dog???

[F, Calla & Luca]

there is a little explanation above.

[Lynda Kamrath]

Ha!  Reminds me of our old family story of when Hondo was a puppy.  Everyone was always asking what kind of a dog he was and we had a beautiful standard poodle who was also brown.  One day (I guess I was tired of being asked) I responded to a guy who asked me what kind of dog he was with a statement that we liked Bruno (the poodle) so much that we decided to clone him, but the clone didn't work very well and we ended up with this puppy.  I said we loved him anyway so all was fine, but the man walked away from me shaking his head.  I wonder if he will think a little more about ity now that this story of a cloned pup has come out.

[Chelsea and Bailey]

I just wonder what kind of life the surrogate mothers have... We saw the one, looks as though they most likely lived in this lab and were continually impregnated until a viable pup was born. Pretty sad to me..

[Moe]

I thought it was nuts. I had concerns about the mothers also. What kind of life do they have? These people don't seem to love dogs, just their one dog. I don't know... how do you think your pet would feel if you told it you were going to replace its memories with a clone? With the same name no less. All of the people just got the dogs also, I wonder how this is going to work out a few years into the future, will the dog be exactly the same, I doubt it.

First sheep, then dogs how many years until we are cloning babies or parents? Just because the technology is available does not mean it is ethically acceptable. What do you guys think?

[Kaytlin and Cooper]

I am a big believer of a mix of Nature AND Nurture - the cloned dog would not have the identical personality of the first dog

think of identical twins, who have the same DNA, same upbringing but have different personalitites

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Was just about to say that.  Took a whole class in college on Nature vs. Nurture and agree - the combo makes the living being who it is.