First, they tried to clone dogs. That didn't work, and the company, Genetic Savings & Clone, shut down. I guess a lot of people lost some money. (Who knows how many dogs they lost in all the experiments they conducted?)

So then they cloned the old company as a new start-up: BioArts.

Next, they succeeded in cloning some dogs.

And now they've even tried to clone Best Friends – or at least the name. The company's website is called Best Friends Again.

You may have seen the doggie lookalikes on the morning TV shows a few weeks ago. Actually, they don't look that much alike. (But that's no surprise. When they cloned some cats back in the old company, the clones weren't even the same color.) And when I saw the dogs on Good Morning America, the cloned puppies all behaved quite differently from each other. Maybe one of them was more like the mother ... but which?

Cloning is such a scam – playing off the emotions of people who sincerely believe they're going to get Fido or Fluffy back. That's not going to happen.

And to name the program after Best Friends is simply outrageous. Needless to say, we're lodging a formal complaint, and with a view to taking matters further.

Note to Lou Hawthorne, CEO of BioArts:

Don't tell us you didn't realize there was a possible conflict of identities. You've known Best Friends for years. You even sent a team here, back in the days of your old company, to check out how we shelter dogs and cats.

And you actually requested that we give or sell you the "bits" from our spay/neuter surgeries so you could experiment with them. (We declined.)

According to reports, BioArts is planning "a series of online auctions ... that will award five winning bidders the opportunity to clone their dogs, living or departed (providing that tissue samples were taken before their deaths)."

The Best Friends Again website says that the first auction takes place on July 5th – opening bid $100,000. New auctions follow every day, with the opening bid increasing each day – up to $180,000. And to qualify, you also have to provide "A bank reference that will confirm your ability to pay for this service, with available cash, assets, or credit line of at least $250,000."

Apparently BioArts is teaming with a South Korean company which has done a number of cloning experiments, and which was disgraced in 2005 when the leader of the team was found to have falsified data relating to cloning human embryonic cells.

Hawthorne admits to various "failed attempts" at cloning in the past, but told Forbes Online "We are 100% sure that we can deliver five dogs to five families." Whether or not he can, no one has ever been told what those "failed attempts" really looked like. How many? What happened to the animals? What kind of suffering was involved? How many living creatures were killed? An article on Alternet puts it thus:

With such high failure rates, hundreds of surrogate dogs must endure significant pain and suffering to produce one cloned puppy. And the surviving cloned animals are typically riddled with serious health problems such as kidney failure, lung problems, and premature death. In discussing the abnormal gene expression thought to cause clones' health problems and abysmal survival rate, MIT cloning expert Rudolph Jaenisch put the matter succinctly: "There may be no normal clones." Good Morning America's failure to provide dog owners this perspective is astonishing.

Back when his team came to Best Friends and we asked why he was trying to clone dogs and cats, Hawthorne said simply, "It's consumer-driven." i.e. people thinking they can keep transfer the entire life experience of one animal into the cloned body of another. That doesn't happen.

This is not science. It's not about enhancing life. It's not about giving people back their beloved pets. It's about making money off the backs of well-meaning but gullible people ... and, worst of all, off the lives and suffering of living creatures.

Please, Lou, at very least take the name of Best Friends off your program.