Luckily, most of us can’t afford the $100,000 price tag.

Not being rich is a blessing in some way. People who live on the ground don’t have moral dilemmas like whether to adopt a dog from a high-kill shelter or clone a dying pet. The media loves it that Barbra Streisand’s cloned dogs will not be identical to the dog she lost. No, of course they will not.

Biologically, a clone is more or less the same thing as a twin. And even so-called identical twins are not identical.

Nor will Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett, Barbra Streisand’s cloned dogs, have the same personalities as Samantha, their biological mother. Streisand is not the same person she was when Samantha was a pup.

Her new dogs will take their cues from the person that Streisand is now. They will not be the dogs that Samantha was. But, being dogs, they will be the dogs that Streisand needs.

Many of us are so lost and irrational when a pet dies, that we would gladly set aside all ethical considerations just to spend another ten minutes with our late friend.

Few people speak of it openly. But, when a pet dies, we may feel that our world has totally crashed down on us.

The longing to somehow recreate that relationship is almost unbearable. And, in the future, some of us will clone our animals in the vain hope of having our lost friend back.

But, while 1.5 million shelters animals die yearly in the United States alone, the braver thing is to go to a shelter, endure the application process, and save a life.