Well apparently between college and work I fell into a black hole of newslessness but I did find an interesting few bits today when I was reading an article at MSNBC on early spay and neuter.

Apparently the missiplicity project last winter wrapped up with the birth of 3 cloned pups and they're opening up an auction in the next couple weeks for dog clones. http://bestfriendsagain.com/ Starting at 100K it's a little out of my pocketbook range even if I did have a dog I wanted to clone.

I then ran across this news article for a free dog cloning contest. http://bestfriendsagain.com/goldenclonegiveaway/index.html and I was left to ponder. However I feel about cloning if I could have my first dog Sam back in this sorta way how much would this dog be like my original Sam with his big bear smile and Arrooo greetings? Would he still be the same dog who tackled the burgler who broke into my Mom's house when she was home, who fished like a bear from running rivers,and met me at the schoolbus in the afternoon? If I didn't vaccinate him and fed him raw would he still get degenerative myleopathy and collie nose this time? I know this is an impossibility as Sam died two years ago but it did get me wondering about the what ifs.

I know the idea of nature vs nurture is something of big debate in the dog community but I must admit I am a little curious to see what happens with this project if anyone objective can post some more objective data to it. Most of the companion animal folks like the few who have cloned horses and cats just mention all the similarities for obvious marketing and status reasons but I've seen no one mention the differences.

Interesting question. I'd think the puppy stage would be quite similar since a puppy is pretty much a blank slate but as time went on there would be differences because of the reason you mentioned, ie. nature vs nurture.

Personally I'd love to have our old beagle Sugar back. She practically raised me. She was my parent's dog from before I was born. When I came home from the hospital she took one look in the bassinet and I was her "puppy" When I cried the first time she ran over to my dad and bit him.

She corrected me the same as she did her puppies when I pestered her and was my babysitter when my parents would put me in the yard. When I figured out how to open the gate she would scratch on the door to tell my parents I was out of the yard. She had numerous litters of puppies (one litter was born on my bed). She wasn't registered but we never had a problem giving the puppies away. Sugar was the kind of dog that the people who knew her just wanted one of her puppies. Can't count the number of people who offered to buy her.

One guy offered $500 for her. That was back in the early 1960's. Back then that was a huge amount of money for an unregistered dog.The reason he offered that much was because she bit him when he tried to reach into the car to pet her. She was only 5 months old. Nobody reached or got in the car unless one of the family was there to tell her it was OK. She never was trained for that or anything else except sit, shake and no. Everything else she figured out on her own.

She lived with us for fifteen years and finally died of cancer when I was 14. I've always been good with dogs but never knew why until a customer (I do on site computer repair) who is a dog trainer pointed out my body language. Apparently it was something I picked up unconcously from growing up with Sugar.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v176/MattNW/ShugarMe.jpg

There was a story about a guy who cloned his big cuddly lovable Brahma bull.
The new one tried to kill him two times. He obviously didn't end up nice like the first one.

If you want to clone a dog, do you think it will be the same dog you had before?The DNA is there and they look alike, but maybe the personality is nothing the same?

They may not even look the same. Coloration can be similar, but the markings will be different, and behavior will be different.
Plus, without a litter of pups and a mom to grow up with... I wonder what would happen to the temperment?
I mean, a pup that is an only pup can be a real handful... No littermates to boss around or be bossed around by can have a HUGE impact on an impressionable pup...

Well it could depend on the genetics of coloring. The reason CC the cat didn't look Calico is that the genes for a calico are very very tricky to express. I know of very few patterns for dogs with maybe the exception of merle that are that complicated.

Again, it more has to do with the maybes of nature vs nurture. It's all debatable but cloning actually may give some opportunities to see how much of behavior is genetic in dogs. Will a genetically identical dog raised from 8 weeks by the same person result in the same drive levels, will it have the same behavioural oddities which all dogs have one or two of, will it die of cancer at the same point in it's life? Will one fed on raw really do better than it's kibble eating cousins or will lifespans/overall health really not change much? How important is litter interaction really?

If breeders tell me their guesses correctly drive and temperment is 50% genetic/50% enviromental, rescues would like the public to believe it's closer to 5-10% genetic/90 - 95% enviromental. I just see it as an opportunity to cinch it down a little more to better the breeding of all dogs. This of course is likely decades down the road if such projects make it that far or could ever hope to be funded.

I think it would be interesting to see what happens with this... it would definitely make some things easier to understand (how important is socialization, etc)