Meesha Kauffman loved her dog so much, she paid 50,000 dollars to clone him. She received 5 puppies, all genetically identical to her dog Bruce Wayne.
“I was expecting one puppy or maybe two,” Kauffman said. “When I heard that five puppies were born, I thought, ‘Wow, I hit the jackpot.’ Having five dogs has definitely been a lifestyle change. But goodness, they bring me so much joy I can’t imagine parting with any of them now.”
In Honor of her original dog, the clone puppies all have superhero names: Clark Kent (Superman), Peter Parker (Spiderman), Wade Wilson (Deadpool) and Tony Stark (Iron Man).
But just because they are clones doesn’t mean they are identical in every way to Bruce Wayne. “What often is driving the transaction, I think, is that people want it to be a rebirth of their pet,” said Alan C. Regenberg of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. “These cloned dogs are as similar to each other as identical twins, who are more similar to each other then people who aren’t identical twins, but they are also very unique.”
“They’re not robotic copies of Bruce Wayne, but they’re more like him than they’re different,” Kauffman said. “They’re always doing something that makes me stop and say: ‘Oh my God, that’s exactly what Bruce would have done.’ ”