by Catsy Jones

Created on: July 10, 2009   Last Updated: July 16, 2009

Having your animal cloned does one thing, it ensures that your new pet will look exactly like your old pet. But is it really your pet? The answer, sadly, is no. Your pet is the way he or she is, not just because of genetics and looks. It is your pet, because of it's experiences in life.

For example, I have a cat named Shadow. He is pure black and has big green eyes and is very sweet. He was taken away from his mother much too early in life, because she was sick. So instead of his mother cat nuturing him, he was fed by people who found him and decided to bottle feed him and his two brothers. He got a complex, one at first I thought was gross, and now have gotten use to and think it is adorable.

He climbs onto my shoulder and sucks at my shirt, and he is almost a year old. He purrs loudly and sucks on my shirt, and when my shoulder is soaked, he leaves. He didn't get this habit from genetics. He got it from experience. If they cloned Shadow and put him inside of a cat to give birth to him, and she nursed him, and he wasn't raised by the same nice people who raised him the last time, and if he weaned on time or even closer to ontime, well, he stil wouldn't suck on my shirt. He wouldn't be my shadow. He would be a cat that looks like my shadow. He would be a cat that maybe had the exact same meow sound as my Shadow. But he still would not be my Shadow.

Part of having an animal is loving them, taking care of them, being their best friend, and someday going through the pain and sadness of losing them. This is part of most relationships with animals, our parents, our grandparents, and on down the line. Usually, barring disease or an accident, our parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, and our pets, die before we do. It is part of a natural process, and by just "making a new pet" we disrupt that process and confuse it. Also, if everyone decided to go ahead and just make a brand new pet, what would happen to all of the animals in our shelters? We don't have enough homes for all of the homeless pets and many get put down every day in shelters around the world. Why do we want to bring more into the world?

I think cloning an animal, (or anything else for that matter), is a bad idea. All you will get is an animal who looks like your old one, and if that is what you want, you can go to a shelter and probably find one that is nearly identical to the one you had before. And really, it's the same thing.

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