According to the Dogs Trust there were almost 112,000 stray dogs in the UK in 2013 which is just one of the many reasons why the news that Britain has its first cloned puppy made me quite so furious.
With rescue centres and charities literally bursting at the seams with dogs looking for forever homes it beggars belief that anyone would pay £60,000 to have a dog cloned. To be fair, the owner of Mini-Winnie who is the product of cloning a 12 year old Dachshund did in fact win the cloning in a competition.
Sooam Biotech, based in Seoul, the company behind the bizarre cloning competition now wants to sell its services to other pet owners in possession of the princely sum of £60,000. I’m sorry but the words more money than sense spring to mind here. It’s yet to be seen if anyone will actually take them up on their offer but I have a sneaking suspicion there will always be some who want a designer dog.
Researchers have warned that even by cloning a much loved pet it is unlikely the puppy will have the same personality traits as the biological parent. In the case of Mini-Winnie she will have to stay in South Korea for the first six months of her life due to strict quarantine rules before travelling to the UK to be united with her owner in East London. This means the puppy will miss out on bonding with her owner, puppy training and socialising which are all important aspects of a puppy’s early life. Even the thought of sending the cloned puppy on such a long overseas journey to bring her home seems rather extreme and unnecessary.
As well as being such a ridiculous waste of money there are also a number of health risks associated with the practice of cloning with many animals dying soon after birth or developing abnormalities. It is also extremely dubious on ethical grounds to create animals on demand in this fashion.
OneKind has also long opposed cloning of farmed animals on animal welfare grounds – it involves invasive procedures such as implantation and caesarean section on a healthy surrogate animal which is not in a position to consent. Many cloned embryos die before birth or shortly afterwards, or suffer welfare problems if they do survive. Little wonder Britain’s veterinary bodies have spoken out against this latest experiment.
I’m not exactly sure what the appropriate or expected response to the news of our first cloned pup should be but it should, in my opinion act as a stark reminder that dogs are sentient creatures and not toys. We shouldn’t be able to order dogs to exact specifications like they are a new model of car just because we have the means to do so. Just think what £60,000 would mean to a charity trying to re-home dogs?
We live in a country where dogs are thrown on the scrap heap day in and day out, there are thousands living in shelters just waiting for someone to take pity on them and offer them a permanent home so the idea of creating a test tube dog is madness. I sincerely hope Mini-Winnie is a one off and the notion of cloning pets will be rubbished by the majority. With the company Sooam Biotech the only firm currently cloning pets let’s hope this passes as just another fad born out of the desire for publicity rather than a credible way to buy a pet.