He Was Here a Minute Ago. Oh Never Mind. He’s Back.

I can’t help myself! Have you been watching the program on Discovery called “I Cloned My Pet”? If not, did you see the recent article in the New York Times on the pet cloning program? Fabulous! Okay, I’m saying that mostly tongue-in-cheek despite clearly advocating the special treatment of pets, even to the point of considering them as if they were family members. Still. Cloning? Really? Maybe I watched Pet Sematary too many times, but I keep thinking that a pet that is gone should, well, stay gone… even if the ground is not yet sour, so to speak, is this a barrier that is not meant to be crossed (with all apologies to Stephen King). Consequently, I was surprised when I read the first line of Neil Genzlinger’s review in the NYT when he wrote: “Surprisingly, it’s possible to take “I Cloned My Pet 2” seriously for almost its entire length.” Thank goodness, though, Neil added a second line: “Right up until the moment when one pet owner consults a medium to find out her dead dog’s opinion on whether she should clone him.” What makes pets special is that we have them for a limited period of time. During that time, we owe it to them to take care of them, provide for them, and make the most of the moments we have because we never know how many more we’ll get. Love your pet as if you couldn’t clone him or her, even for $155,000.