cloning our pets

I've just read a short story about the cloning of a pet dog.

It's called 'Admiral', and is published in the 2008 edition of The Best American Short Stories. T.C.Boyle wrote it, and it's about a rich couple who want an exact copy of their beloved Afghan, Admiral, after he dies.They realise that just cloning the animal won't produce a creature that is the same, so they attempt to reproduce the environmnet in which the first dog grew up. I won't say any more about it,because it's a great story and you might want to read it. It was originally published in Harper's Magazine.(You can't read the story there unless you subscribe to the magazine.)

As I was reading it, I had the weirdly scary thought that if this story had been published ten years ago it would have been science fiction .

Now we live in a world in which Korean scientists are currently cloning a pit bull terrier.A woman in the US is paying a reported sum of US$150,000 for the procedure.The BBC report says she saved tissue from the dog's ear when it died 18 months ago and that she loved the dog because it saved her life when another dog attacked her and bit off her arm.(Sounds amazing...)

It's to be hoped that if she succeeds she doesn't lose her new pet to the Dangerous Breeds legislation that seems to be sweeping the US.