These animals are behaviorally complex. They are not just products of a strict genetic blueprint - but of the multicoloured and textured tapestry of their environment and experiences.

This means that a consumer - who is paying thousands of dollars in hopes of getting the same dog or cat - will be getting and animal that behaves differently than the original.

That, says Magnus, is "a rip-off".

Hawthorne says anyone who thinks a pet is going to be reappearing I "seriously deluded". But he does believe the cloned animal s will tend to behave similarly, akin to a twin.

Karen London, a certified animal behaviorist based in new Hampshire, says the environment plays a bigger role than Hawthorne suggests. She says three things go into shaping an individual's behaviors: genetics, the environment an the interaction between genetics an environment.

"Nobody knows how much behavior is influenced by the environment," she says , but "early experiences could extend" into the animal's personality.

For instance, "it's those moments when you comfort your dog at just that critical moment" that help shape that dog's behavious and relationship with you. Events such as these can't be passed on to aclone, she says.

Hawthorne counter by saying "every animal is going to have its first exposure to aggression" and comfort. It's not so much the manner of the moment as the fact that it happened.

Everybody - including London and Magnus - agrees that some behavious is genetically determined. For instance, different breeds have unique behavioral traits- such as herding in collies and retrieving in Labradors.

It's exactly this kind of reproducible behavious Hawthorne promises to deliver to his clients.

He points out that the majority of requests he has received are from people who own mutts - a combination of genes that could not be replicated through conventional breeding.

"Millions of people believe their pets are one in million," he says. That's the paradox of thee business: taking that one in a million an trying to make two.