Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning science writer, and a contributing editor at 
There's been lots and lots written about the ethics of commercially cloning dogs and other pets -- a practice I see as a prime example of extreme human idiocy. Who spends gazillions of dollars cloning a pet dog when it's widely known that (a) the resulting puppies won't be copies of the origianl dog, (b) they'll likely have health problems, and (c) there are SO MANY PUPPIES that need homes? The answer: Very disturbing people, that's who. (And it doesn't look like this problem is going away any time soon.) I say all of this to raise yet another issue I have with the commercial cloning of puppies: The photo above is featured in many articles, and on the website of RNL Bio, which has produced some of the first (and several subsequent) commercial puppy clones. From what I can tell, no one seems to be noticing the horrendous condition that surrogate mother dog appears to be in. Look at her ribs. Look at her hip bones. That dog looks extremely malnourished (and overheated for some reason). So people are not only wasting enormous amounts of money to create cloned pets that may or may not have medical problems as a result, but it looks (not surprisingly) like they're probably doing so at the expense of the dogs who actually give birth to those puppies.
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Fuck, I had not idea about these issues with pet cloning. This really is horrible, a grotesque paean to human vanity. Ugh.
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | March 8, 2009 5:52 PM
Abuse aside, I've always been a bit skeptical of this company. A Korean friend of mine said it quickly evolved out of a woo-based "natural cures" supplements company, which is still largely featured on their website here:
https://rnl.co.kr/eng/product/product_0201.html
https://rnl.co.kr/eng/product/product_0202.html
Then, wham, they're cloning dogs and have collaborations with major US universities on stem cell research. They list products such as "Cancerstem Cell therapy for curing cancer" that seems far beyond technology I'm aware of. I smell a scandal coming.
Posted by: RobC | March 8, 2009 7:26 PM
That is completely disgusting. Stuff like this makes me feel sad for humanity. Not to mention the dogs.
Posted by: scicurious | March 9, 2009 9:41 AM
The panting is a pretty common behavior for nursing moms. The forehead folds and the tilt of the ears towards the camera shows that she's concerned about something, probably all the humans staring at her. But yeah, she could use lots more groceries and would it kill them to give her something soft to lie on?
Posted by: lisa | March 11, 2009 1:21 AM
"But yeah, she could use lots more groceries and would it kill them to give her something soft to lie on?"
Exactly. I have seen better-fed and better-cushioned nursing mothers *in animal shelters.*
Posted by: Linda | April 30, 2009 10:02 PM
OMG! Puppy cloning? Seriously, these scientist have a little too much time on their hands. They need to spend more time finding homes for puppies without homes and less time trying to duplicate and produce unhealthy ones. That picture is despicable! Where are the Animal Cops putting a stop to this nonsense?!
Posted by: Brittany | May 4, 2009 1:54 PM
What a ridiculous waste of money, not to mention abuse of the cloned animals. Millions of animals a year put down (in addition to the millions more we devour) and somehow someone finds it a worthwhile endeavor to waste money trying to figure out how to clone one particular animal that will essentially share only its features in common with its predecessor. Animal cloning should be illegal, at least for commercial purposes.
Posted by: Xanthippas | May 6, 2009 10:44 AM
What a ridiculous waste of money, not to mention abuse of the cloned animals. Millions of animals a year put down (in addition to the millions more we devour) and somehow someone finds it a worthwhile endeavor to waste money trying to figure out how to clone one particular animal that will essentially share only its features in common with its predecessor. Animal cloning should be illegal, at least for commercial purposes.
Posted by: Xanthippas | May 6, 2009 10:48 AM
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Posted by: zayıflama | May 17, 2009 5:43 PM
I Think it's fairly dumb to spend millions of dollars cloning a dog, but it's not my money. If researchers want to do ridiculously expensive research, it's their business to do so. In terms of animal rights wise, I don't think obtaining genetic material to create the clone harms the original dog in anyway, so it's good in my book.
Posted by: Omer Altay | June 27, 2009 6:36 AM