The current brouhaha over the first cloned kitten brings the debate out of the barnyard and into the living room. But why can’t they clone a dog?
The question nags. The world seems to be divided into two kinds of people: those who dislike animals (let’s call them, oh, the forces of darkness), and everybody else.
The dark forces view CC (for copy cat or carbon copy) the kitten as an abomination and a sinister harbinger of human cloning follies yet to come. Animal rightists agree, as do animal care organizations that are leading efforts to reduce feline birth rates through nationwide spay and neutering programs.
They’re all making their feelings known.
But many other people don’t express their opinions. They just listen to the wrangling, and watch the news, and patiently wait.
Remembering. ….
She was tiny (only about 8 pounds), feisty and fearless, and she entered his life when he spotted her lounging in the sun in a dog pound in Los Angeles. When she came up for adoption, he won her after a feverish auction, with bids escalating at a quarter a pop. He’ll never forget the rush that came with the final smash of the gavel and the auctioneer growling: “Sold for sixteen dollars and fifty cents! She’s your dog, sir.”
No veterinarian could ever tell him what she was. “Peke-Terry,” was the pound’s guess, but he has never seen another one like her, and he has watched newspaper ads and checked out pet shops for 30 years.
The terrier part was for sure. Sharp. A vigilant little watchdog with a bright, penetrating bark. She never seemed to realize how diminutive she was, and along with her other household duties, she raised two generations of Alaskan malamutes, majestic show animals, the largest sled dogs in the world.
Now, that was a breed suitable for a man. A manly breed of dog. They outweighed her by well over 100 pounds and always could have squashed her with a swipe of a massive paw. But instead, they bowed to her dominance, basked in her praise, meekly endured her scolding and apologized for their rudeness (mals rarely apologize to anyone).
She often tempted fate. Once, when a German shepherd was bullying a malamute puppy, she leaped from her owner’s arms and ran off the thug, jumping and snapping at the surprised police dog’s tail while its incredulous owner gawked. She was not a toy to be toyed with.
Otherwise, her life was devoted to her family. Too proud to be conned by food rewards, she wouldn’t do many tricks and refused to accept any sort of obedience training–oh, that brings to mind her fanatical fondness for green peppers, which she would swipe from a shopping bag in the kitchen whenever fortune smiled.
And every night of her life–for 19 years–was spent sleeping in the crook of his left arm. He still feels her there sometimes, and in his sleep makes sure he doesn’t crush her.
She was just a little mutt. Nothing special. Sixteen-fifty from a dog pound in L.A.
Would he have cloned her if he could? How much would he be willing to pay?
How much is love worth?
Why can’t they clone a dog?
What’s holding things up?
They’ve cloned sheep, cattle, goats, mice, pigs and now a cat.
“The basic science behind dog reproduction was virtually non-existent when we started. We’ve had to begin from square one,” says Mark Westhusin, the lead scientist who has spent millions of donated dollars trying to clone a beloved 13-year-old collie-husky mix named Missy–the Missyplicity Project, as it’s known.
“We know a lot about how to manipulate the reproduction of a cat. We’ve worked with lions and tigers. We’ve had cats born after in-vitro fertilization and from frozen embryos. We can adjust a cat’s hormones and get her to come into heat when we want. We just know a lot more about cats.”
The work has been done at Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in College Station–home of the oldest cloned bull, cloned goat and some pigs.
In three years, using hundreds of canine eggs retrieved from dogs that were spayed at vet clinics, the Texas team has produced only a dozen embryos carrying Missy’s DNA. Most didn’t survive the transfer into surrogate moms, and the one late-term pregnancy didn’t make it.
But if Westhusin and his team can ever figure out a way to get surrogate moms to come into heat when cloned embryos are ready, they think they will succeed–perhaps in another year or two. Every dog has her day, and it seems the time has finally come for mutts.
“Oh, yes. This place is Mecca for mutts,” Westhusin says.
There has been a lot written about how the clone would look, and how her personality would be different, depending on how she was raised.
But anyone who has ever trained dogs knows that no two are exactly alike and that the basic character of the animal is in the genes.
The clone might not look exactly like the original, but she would have the same personality, talents, potential.
You don’t have to force malamutes to pull sleds, for instance, or obedience trial champions to retrieve, or–remarkably, it has turned out–beagles to sniff out termites. It all comes naturally. The temperament of the animal is inborn.
This fact of life even shows up in cloned livestock, notes Chuck Long, research director of the pet cloning company backing Westhusin’s work, Genetic Savings & Clone Inc.
“One of our colleagues at A&M cloned a bull. The bull’s name was Chance, and the clone was named Second Chance,” Long recalls.
“Chance was owned by a rodeo clown named Ralph Fisher, and Ralph was very attuned to the personality of Chance. It was very uncharacteristic for a bull. He was very friendly; he was docile. And the clone not only bears a striking physical resemblance but also has some strong behavioral traits in common. He likes to hang out in the same part of the pasture, he sits down the same way, and he is just as docile and friendly as the genetic donor.”
Just anecdotal evidence?
“A cloned animal is a reproduction,” Westhusin is fond of saying. “Not a resurrection.”
With any luck at all, we’ll see.
When the cloned cat story appeared, many people stopped by the desk of the Tribune staffer who had written it. After glancing around to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard, they all shyly asked the same thing. They were smiling, but their eyes weren’t kidding:
“Tell me, really. How soon will they be able to clone a dog?”
