A PET IS FOREVER ... NOW YOU CAN GET HIM CLONED

IF you can't face the heartache of losing a beloved pet, help is at hand. For a pounds 10,000 fee, it is now possible to get an exact clone of the much-missed cat or dog.

The new service will also be offered to professional breeders who want to clone animals for stud purposes.

A duplicate of a thoroughbred racehorse, for instance, will cost about pounds 75,000. More than 100 customers have already paid up- front, says Dr. Brigette Boisselier, scientific director of Las Vegas- based firm Clonaid.

She says the service should be up and running in a few months.

"The recent cloning of Dolly the sheep in Scotland proves that the technology is available," she adds.

"I see no ethical problem with the procedure."

Company spokesman Nadine Gray said: "We will be cloning pets mainly for people very attached to their animals. They want their pets to come back to life.

"This will be carried out using blood samples sent to our laboratories which can then be used to reproduce an exact copy of the pet.

"This is obviously a very sophisticated procedure which is why the fees are so high.

"We are not playing God. This is just new life for people who want to keep their beloved pets alive forever."

Eventually the firm hopes to start cloning humans.

Nadine Gray said: "First we need to find a country, possibly in the Caribbean, that does not have laws against cloning humans.

"The fee for cloning a child will be pounds 150,000.

"We will also have a service where people can send their samples to us for storage. Should anything happen to a loved one, they can be cloned from the specimen. The fee will be around pounds 30,000.

"One day these services will be commonplace. The cloning of humans will be accepted by everyone."

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