Dog Owner So Upset At Loss Of Pet That She Had Him Cloned…FIVE Times
(Update at end of article.)
As a lover of animals, I am shocked and disgusted at this news:
Five pit bull terrier puppies have been born in the world’s first cloning of a pet dog for a paying customer.
They are the genetic doubles of Booger, a pit bull whose death from cancer two years ago left his owner Bernann McKinney so bereft that she sold her house to raise the £25,000 [$48,000] needed to – in her eyes – bring him back to life.
A little backstory…this woman adopted from an agency a pit bull that she named Booger. Some years later, she was attacked by a mastiff and Booger intervened in the attack, helping fight off the dog and probably saving her life. As a result of the attack, Bernann was left in a wheelchair after reconstructive surgery, so Booger learned how to become a service dog. He would do things like open doors, take laundry out of the dryer, and getting things out of the fridge. So obviously it seems that the relationship between the two was a loving one, as most relationships between pets and their owners are, and especially between a person and their service animal.
Tragically, Booger developed cancer, and distraught at the thought of losing her friend forever, Bernann had some skin cells taken from his ear and frozen. Failing to produce a duplicate of Booger in the US, she turned to a lab in South Korea, and they were able to produce five identical-looking Booger clones:
The 57-year-old Californian scriptwriter has named the puppies Booger McKinney, Booger Lee, Booger Ra, Booger Hong and Booger Park, after herself and the South Korean scientists behind their birth.
RNL Bio, the Seoul cloning company, said the process was so straightforward it could clone 300 dogs a year for bereaved pet owners around the world. [...]
The technology, the same as that used to create Dolly the Sheep, brings with it high risk of miscarriage and still birth – and for those creatures that do survive, ill health and premature death.
Bernann, for her part, defends her decision to have the cloning done:
‘Booger was my partner and my friend. They are perfectly the same as their daddy. I am in heaven here. I am a happy person.’
‘I had to make sacrifices and I dream of the day, some day, when everyone can afford to clone their pet because losing a pet is a terrible, terrible loss to anyone.’ [...]
‘I wanted my friend back,’ she said. ‘Booger taught me I could do anything I could do before the accident. I just had to figure out a different way to do it.’ [...]
Ms McKinney, who will be able to take her new pets home next month, said their birth healed the pain of Booger’s death.
‘It is a miracle for me because I was able to smile again, laugh again and just feel alive again,’ she explained. [...]
On first seeing them in a Seoul laboratory, she repeatedly shouted ‘It’s a miracle’.
‘Yes, I know you! You know me too!’ she said hugging the tiny black creatures.
Ms McKinney sold her house to pay the £25,000 [$48,000] bill, after receiving a special rate for publicising the company.
However, other customers can expect to pay as much as £75,000 [$146,000], although the price should drop as the technology develops.
Other professionals aren’t so thrilled with the news, however, and give us dire warnings of such procedures:
RSPCA [Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] senior scientist Penny Hawkins said: ‘Cloning dogs as pets is abhorrent to the RSPCA.
‘I can’t believe that any true dog lover would condone causing suffering to dogs and wasting their lives for such a trivial and selfish purpose, particularly when animal shelters worldwide have thousands of dogs who need loving homes.
‘In any case, a cloned animal is never going to be an exact copy of the original pet.
‘There is much more to an animal than its DNA and cloned dogs will inevitably have different life experiences, resulting in animals with different personalities.’
And there you have it…the one voice of reason in this whole messy disaster.
Animals, like people, are (generally speaking) a product of both nature and nurture. For every story you hear of a pit bull being vicious and mauling its owner, you hear of one like Booger, who becomes a service animal and loving pet. Certain animals do have more aggressive natures, but given the right sort of nurturing, many times they do learn to become loving pets. The same with an animal who is more docile by nature…you can turn them into an angry dog who bites and growls at everyone by mistreating it all its life. Yes, there’s always the exception, where an animal who has been treated with kindness all its life still cannot control the aggressiveness inherent in its personality, or the continually mistreated animal which still keeps its sweet demeanor, but for the most part they, as well as us, are a combination of the inbred nature of the animal and the nurture it receives from the people in its life.
No matter how hard she tries, this woman simply is not going to have little Booger duplicates because they will not have had the life Booger had, they do not have his memories, they do not have his life experiences that he drew on to learn how to act and react in a situation involving his owner. These animals are NOT her lost dog, they are simply copies of the appearance of the original, no better than moving photographs.
And where is she going to keep FIVE pit bulls? If she’s sold her house, where is she living? Can you rent a house where they will let you keep five dogs? Is she living in an apartment? That should be interesting. And if she is confined to a wheelchair, how is she going to take care of five dogs, if she needs help in her daily life? Having puppies is just like having toddlers, and now this woman has five. If she couldn’t afford the fee, how is she going to afford dog food and vet care for five pit bulls?
I am not unsympathetic to her feelings of loss. I, too, have tragically lost a pet, and I know the intense sadness one feels. Even now, several years later, I still feel pain when I think of it. And after all, you’re talking to a woman who ran into a burning house to save a cat (who is sitting here watching me). But when an animal has reached the end of its circle of life, the humane thing is to let it go peacefully and with dignity. She could have honored Booger’s memory in a much more appropriate way by adopting another pet from a shelter or rescue agency…after all, that’s how she got Booger. 6-8 million animals enter shelters in the United States every year, and she could have easily chosen one of them. I’m sure there would have been a dog there who would have been a wonderful replacement for her loving pet.
And it would have been a lot cheaper as well. Most of the time, for less than $200 (many places it’s less than $100), you can adopt a furry friend of your very own. Just think what good that $48,000 would have done had she donated it to her local animal shelter or pet rescue agency, instead of squandering it on her own selfish desires.
That’s what this boils down to…selfishness. She was heartbroken at the loss of her pet (and understandably so), so instead of sharing her love with another homeless animal, she decides to bring new cloned lives into the already overpopulated animal world…lives which might not be healthy and/or might end prematurely. So what’s she going to do when these dogs die…have the clones cloned? Like a photocopy of a photocopy, I can only imagine that they will degrade with each successive generation. But who cares, as long as she’s happy again? What does it matter the feelings or quality of life of these little scientifically created animals, as long as she can smile again? Forget about all the shelter animals who need a forever home, as long as she has her little cloned creatures!
In memory of Booger, I urge GlossLip readers to make a donation of some sort to their local animal shelter or rescue agency…most accept not only monetary donations, but donations of pet food and litter as well. And why not consider giving one of these poor, unfortunate animals a forever home with you?
“Don’t breed or buy while shelter pets die” should probably now be amended to “Don’t clone and buy while shelter pets die.”
UPDATE: Just saw this article in the Daily Mail, where it is alleged that Bernann McKinney could actually be Joyce McKinney, wanted in Britain for going on the lam thirty years ago after kidnapping a Mormon, chaining him to the bed with mink handcuffs, and forcing him to have sex with her.
If this is true, she’s crazier than I thought she was:
In 1978, Joyce McKinney jumped bail and disappeared after being charged with kidnapping a 17-stone male Mormon missionary, whom she had chained to a Devon cottage bed with mink handcuffs and forced to have sex.
At the time, she famously said of her victim: ‘I loved him so much that I would ski naked down Mount Everest with a carnation up my nose if he asked me to.’
Were these two blonde, American, dog-loving and, yes, quite possibly barking mad, Miss McKinneys one and the same person?
Last night, when we spoke to ‘Bernann’ on the telephone, having tracked her down to a Seoul hotel room, her hostile reaction hardly quashed the intrigue.
Asked: ‘Are you really Joyce McKinney?’ she snapped: “Are you going to ask me about my dogs, or not? Because that’s all I’m prepared to talk to you about.”
Not exactly a flat-out denial, then. [...]
What, then, of ‘Bernann McKinney’ who has had her pitbull Booger cloned and claims to be a Hollywood scriptwriter and university lecturer?
She says she is 57 and a former beauty queen. In an interview in a Korean newspaper, she was described as a grandmother, and initially alleged that she had sold her home to pay for the cloning.
(The company responsible says that it would normally charge £75,000 for the controversial procedure, but that it has cut the fee in return for Miss McKinney’s co-operation in their publicity campaign.)
In another Korean interview, she described being the victim of an horrific attack by an enraged bull mastiff, that shredded her left arm to the elbow, tore open a leg and ripped three fingers from her left hand.
She survived only because her faithful Booger chased it off. Even then, the injuries were so bad that she was confined to a wheelchair while surgeons reconstructed her left hand and arm.
Booger remained by her side throughout her recuperation and gave her the will to go on.
Not convinced yet?
Let us look then at the similarities between our two Miss McKinneys.
Joyce will be celebrating her 59th birthday this week, while Bernann claims to be two years younger.
It is a fact, though, that former beauty queens (and even less celebrated mortals) often reduce their ages later in life.
Both Joyce and Bernann use wheelchairs, while the latter’s late pitbull Booger sounds very similar in name to Joyce’s faithful Hamburger.
There is no record of a Bernann McKinney living in Los Angeles, nor does anyone of that name belong to the Screenwriters’ Guild.
No university drama department we contacted has heard of any such teacher. It is an undisputable fact, however, that Joyce was once a drama student.
But perhaps the most persuasive circumstantial evidence to suggest that Joyce and Bernann are the same woman, is that a Joyce Bernann McKinney is registered as living in Avery County, North Carolina – birthplace of the Mormon sex slave kidnapper.
She has been on the voters’ register there since 1988.
‘Who started all this?’ Miss ‘Bernann’ McKinney demanded to know when she was phoned in Seoul, as she prepared to return to the U.S. with one of the puppies. (The others will remain in care among the scientists who have cloned them in the short-term.)
Told that there was a growing internet debate about whether she was indeed the Mormon kidnapper, Miss McKinney replied: ‘I’m only going to talk to you about the dogs and the death of Booger. I’ve got people waiting to dine with me. I’m not talking about anything else.’
And that was that. She would neither confirm nor deny the link.
I did a little sleuthing on my own and found a Bernann McKinney in North Carolina, but not in California.
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this person is very child-like, and NOT in a good way. sad and lonely is sad and lonely, but that isn’t a reason to create pain in the world.
to that woman…all those poor animals in the pound that need someone, and there are now what, 5 less homes for their little hearts and bodies? i have worked with animals for years. every animal that is born leaves one less home for an animal in the shelter. think about that…all you breeders think about that too. do you really love animals, then take one who is going to die, don’t make more you vapid twits!
this is disgusting to me.
Comment by lemore — August 6, 2008 @ 8:48 pm
“an agency that she named Booger”
Why did she call the agency Booger? Just wondering… ;-P
Comment by Exyank — August 7, 2008 @ 2:44 am
Touche. I reworded the awkward phrase.
It’s been a heckuva couple of days, please forgive me the odd weird sentence.
Comment by k — August 7, 2008 @ 2:55 am
Sokay, K. I’m just tugging your leg a little. That’s why I put in the winking emoticon with a tongue sticking out. ;-P
Comment by Exyank — August 7, 2008 @ 4:06 am
[...] Dog Owner So Upset At Loss Of Pet That She Had Him Cloned…FIVE Times Glosslip – Cleveland,OH,USA If she couldn’t afford the fee, how is she going to afford dog food and vet care for five pit bulls? I am not unsympathetic to her feelings of loss. … See all stories on this topic [...]
Pingback by Animals,Uncategorized,science | Stop Dog Bark now — Recycle Email — August 7, 2008 @ 7:09 am
I’m honestly disgusted.
A few years ago, our own beloved dog, whom we’ve had for over a decade, suddenly contracted an illness. He lost his sigh and spent close to a week at the animal hospital. The vet, a lovely woman, had to break the severity of his incurable illness to us. It was ultimately decided that he be put out of his misery. We hugged, petted him and told him we loved him as the vet gave him the final shot.
It was BEYOND painful because he was fine one day… a week later, he was gone. It took us a LONG tine to get used to him not greeting us at the door. It was painful to see his leash and food bowls. It was a long time before we finally moved them.
We adopted another dog earlier this year. We love him, but he will never replace our last dog, who was with my family through some of the hardest times of our lives.
This woman should have thought about those millions of other animals in shelters and societies before she went and cloned her pet. Life is precious and IRREPLACEABLE. Not one of these little puppies will be HER dog.
Comment by A Watcher — August 7, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
Yeah, it’s okay, Exyank…I’m just having one of those weeks.
Celeb writers have lives too! 
Comment by k — August 7, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
A Watcher:
Well said.
Comment by lemore — August 7, 2008 @ 5:48 pm
Wow! At first I was just disgusted– as everyone else was– but after reading the Mormon sex fiasco I’m really interested in this story! Crazy how she didn’t even deny it. I know if someone asked me “Hey, did you rape a Mormon boy with mink handcuffs?” I’d be like “What? No!”, not “I’m not talking about anything but my dogs.” I can’t wait to read about when they prove it’s the same lady ;D
I do gotta say, that clone is making a REALLY cute face… next to a monster in blue eyeshadow. They must have done some amazing reconstructive surgery on her fingers, because they look fine…
Comment by Brooke — August 8, 2008 @ 1:00 am
It’s her money she can do what she wants with it. As for the RSPCA, they kill dogs on looks and in the name of good management, not because of a shortage of homes.
Comment by alexis candititis — August 10, 2008 @ 2:45 am
[...] this article I did a few days ago about Bernann McKinney, the woman who was so upset about the death of her pet [...]
Pingback by GlossLip » Bernann McKinney Of The Cloned Puppies IS Joyce McKinney Of The Mink Handcuffs — August 11, 2008 @ 2:08 pm
You are disgusting in your filthy lies about this kind hearted woman. First of all, after Booger died she was literally pining away, and had to be force fed, she wouldn’t even eat. Cloning gave her new hope. New birth. But of course insensitive horses asses like you couldn’t understand that. Moreover, after Booger died, she went straight to the pound and adopted three MORE dogs, rescuing them from the needle. She also saved one from the hurricane, and fixed its broken leg, as well as adopting a fifth dog which was abandoned and left behind with the moving boxes when someone moved and left it to starve. Being the devoted animal lover that she is, she loved them all, BUT none of these dogs were Service Dog BOOGER. Also, do you expect ONE HANDICAPPED WOMAN to adopt 80 million dogs in thousands of shelters all over the world? What kind of fantasy world are you in? How many shelter dogs do YOU have in YOUR home? (She has five–meaning SHE is more compassionate than YOU!) And it is none of your dang business how she spends her money, either. As for the LIBELOUS defamatory filth you printed accusing her of crimes she HAS NEVER BEEN CHARGED WITH, THIS GARBAGE WILL BE TURNED OVER TO HER LIBEL ATTORNEYS SO THAT THEY CAN FILE INTERNET LIBEL CHARGED AGAINST YOU. (YES, IT IS ILLEGAL TO PROPAGATE LIES AND SLANDER VIA THE INTERNET.) You need to learn a lesson about lying on the internet. Hope you have plenty of money to pay for the damages you have done to her reputation–and don’t count on falling back on libelous media stories–as THEY are all being sued as well. Bye bye! [P.S. And take a compassion pill... As well as plan to someday to go see the book and movie based on her life and courageous struggle as a handicapped person and her bond of love with Booger. SHAME ON ALL OF YOU! You stop hiding and give your real names so we can see ya in court!]
Comment by eb — August 22, 2008 @ 3:04 am
Calm down, don’t take it so personally. After all, we aren’t talking about you, are we now?
Comment by k — August 22, 2008 @ 11:06 am