• the217
• Life
• All dogs should go to heaven

There has always been a dog somewhere in almost every memory I have. If I think about being four years old, standing in the kitchen, somewhere in the background there’s a dog begging for a treat. If I think about sitting at my desk in college, there’s a dog curled around my feet. Even now, if I picture myself in the backyard, there’s a dog in there somewhere pissing on a bush. I remember and miss every dog I’ve ever had. They are nice memories to think back on.

Um, that being said, I’m perfectly content with what I gave to them, and more importantly, what they gave to me. I’m pretty much at peace with all of it. Even if I had a ratty old sweatshirt that had some of my deceased dog’s saliva on it (and there’s actually a pretty good chance of that), I’m fairly sure I still wouldn’t be shopping around for a cloning company. Maybe I’m in the minority, and that’s really too bad.

When I recently read about a lady who went to South Korea with fifty thousand dollars and some of her dog’s frozen cells in hopes of cloning her late canine, I sort of just felt sorry for her. You know, kind of the same way I feel when I see an adult wearing a shirt with a Disney character on it. I think I understand what they feel, even though I don’t advocate it in any way. It’s just sort of a general sadness.

Anyway, the biggest argument against pet cloning is that it’s a slippery slope. We people have no self-control and eventually someone somewhere will begin cloning humans. I’m sure that’s probably what would happen and even though I miss my grandparents who have passed, I gotta tell you, seeing them in any living form these days would probably creep my out. It’s not really an ethical deal so much as it would simply scare the piss out of me.

Anyway, to make a creepy story short, the cloning worked. The dead dog’s name was “Booger” and now there are five of him ... or at least five replicates of him. It almost sounds sort of cool. A person could subscribe to five different daily newspapers and have each of them laid at their feet by some sort of Booger. Either that or their shoe collection would get chewed up at a five times faster rate. I guess it all depends on the original Booger.

As it turns out, Booger number one was a bit of a hero. He saved his owner’s life when she was being attacked by another dog three times Booger’s size. The owner’s left hand was extremely injured and it also messed up her legs and stomach. She ended up in a wheelchair for a period of time and Booger also helped out during her recovery. Yep, Booger was apparently something special.

The thing is, he was something special because he was one of a kind ... and he probably should have stayed that way. I mean, one of a kind things are very rare and precious. Jesus was supposedly pretty special, but I’m not sure how well his legacy would have been served if someone took a snippet of the Shroud of Turin and made five replicate saviors. Oh sure, the cross making industry would have been salivating, but otherwise, I think the rest of us folks would just be confused.

It would also make praying far more difficult. “Dear Jesus 4.0, thanks for giving one of your seven or eight lives so that the rest of us can live in eternal bliss.”

The other thing is, there are plenty of dogs out there that have the capacity to be every bit as awesome as Booger was. Geez Louise, I’m sure there are some really nice puppies at every damned humane society in the nation that she could pick up for next to nothing, but I suppose she doesn’t roll that way. I guess I’m just the sort of guy that doesn’t throw fifty thousand dollars around ... even if I did have it. The dog I have now was an orphan and I think he cost thirty-five dollars or something around that figure. Great dog, better price. Sure, all those dogs might not be as special as Booger, but they really deserve a chance to be.

Even with all that, I still sort of feel sorry for the lady who cloned her dog. I’m sure she misses Booger. I know I miss Blossom, Snowball, Butterball, Nicky, Ben, Pickles, Artie, Fern, Bill, Max, Pat and Chuckie. I know one day I’ll miss CeCe and Will. I also know I don’t regret a moment I had with any of them. Alive or dead, they still manage to bring a smile to my face and maybe twelve or thirteen years is the limit on a thing like that.

It sucks to lose something you care about, but really, that’s the point of the entire thing. You can only treasure it and feel for it because it’s fragile and your time with it is limited. Otherwise, it’s just pleasant noise, not all that special, not all that unspecial. If anything in the world still holds some value, it should probably be life, and the thing that makes it wonderful is that we have so little of it.