Actually Vancamp, I'm pretty sure I got that quote from milt. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

As far as cloning goes, I don't like the idea one bit. Maybe for medical research....ok fine. Otherwise I think it leads things down a scary and dangerous road.

vancamp I agree with your statement about eliminating genetic disease but that is as far as it should go. There is to much genetic diversity and years of hard work to be lost if cloning would become the reproductive method of choice.

Chet

The open mind should be gaining knowledge to breed for the betterment of the working dog.
How many times new training concepts pop up?? :rolleyes:
How many last! New idea's should always be looked at, but not always acted upon.

The genetic engineering research for medical purposes are fantastic. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> The results have benefitted all.

With a cloned dog we would be only testing the ability of the trainer, not the dog's ability.

I maybe full of SH-T, but at least it will real dog SH-T. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Keeping Things Simple works Best

At around $80,000.00 a pop I doubt that breeding will be replaced at any time soon. There are enough technical problems that i really dout it will ever happen as anything more than a toy for the ultra rich.

At around $80,000.00 a pop I doubt that breeding will be replaced at any time soon. There are enough technical problems that i really dout it will ever happen as anything more than a toy for the ultra rich.

People said the same thing about air travel when it was first available. Further no ones mentioned that you don't even need the same bred of dog to produce puppies. You could just have a bunch of labs, and you would still get a GSD. A lab is much cheaper then a quality working GSD bitch (assuming the process lowered in price)

...years of hard word to be lost...

Technically years of hard work goes away when the dog dies.

When I thought of cloning working dogs i was thinking from the point of the police departments and military.

I want a Hektor clone. I would like to see what Max saw in this dog, and work him. Once and for all settle the "what Max intended arguement".

How about "What VanCamp intended"? I like that. It has a nice ring to it.LOL <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

The possibility of cloning could open a whole new can of worms. What if you had 100 clones of a popular male dog? Should you neuter them all? If the original dog was that great, the potential that these dogs would be bred could destroy the breeds genetic variability. These dogs could completely dominate the genetic pool. Where would you be then?

Once a clone is at a certain stage of development, you could transplant the embryo into a breed of dog that is very common. (labrador) Embryo transfer is already done with certain rare zoo animals. Cloning could become rampant as long as you had hosts to carry the fetuses to term.

Remember when no one thought a man would walk on the moon? Conceivably, it could happen in the next 25 years. While it's thrilling to see science develop to such a degree, it is also very frightening. The thought of such knowledge becoming part of daily life is worrysome. Not all would use this technology wisely, and the ramifications of flooding the market with a single gene pool can only be guessed at. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

well I'd like to think the cloning would have no more an impact then selling the sperm from a popular dog. Sperm keeps up to 20 years.

I don't think you'll ever have to worry about direct (somatic cell) clones for dogs. It has been done in most livestock species, but its possibility of producing a financial benefit is near nil (with the exception of animals for use in human biomedical work). A far more realistic possibility would be embreo splitting. This has been done for decades in cattle. It would allow you to take two dogs (probably those that have been shown to produce really nice offspring) breed them and split the fertilized ova many, many times. These could then be implanted into lesser quality females (same species, maternal womb characteristics do have an impact on the developing fetus). That way with one good bitch, and 5 other crappy ones, you could easily produce 6 good litters per year. I'm really surprised that this isn't common practice in dogs now...probably due to the breed registries.