I cloned my dog. They have completely different personalities.

Sydney, Olivia and Fiona are three genetically identical dogs, so the slight strangeness of it does hit me at times. Sydney is imprinting her characteristics onto them, but each puppy has her own separate, distinct personality and they all have their little quirks. That’s the most interesting aspect of all this for me.

Olivia is sweet and a little reserved, almost shy, while Fiona is boisterous and exuberant. But Olivia is the bigger dog. Fiona would have been considered the runt of a normal litter. When Fiona comes into the house she jumps on the couch and throws all the back cushions off. Meanwhile, Olivia wants to be on the bed the whole time. They have a game of Mexican stand-off that Fiona usually starts where she lowers her head and stares at Olivia from across the yard and then after 10 to 15 seconds they charge each other. About 99 percent of the time one of them chickens out at the last moment, and the chicken is usually the one that started the game.

Although they are different to her, they do have the same scrappiness that Syd has and like her, they love people and figure things out quickly. A typical one-mile walk takes over an hour because they stop and investigate everything. And just like Syd once did, they have spent their youth destroying several thousand dollars worth of furniture, coverings, wiring, reading glasses and sunglasses. Both are also completely ball crazy and very agile; they can almost catch a rabbit now at their current size, and that’s saying a lot because our Saskatchewan rabbits are incredibly fast. I would say the puppies do have one big advantage over Syd though; they have her, Jake and each other to play with and to love as they grow up. Jake is the definitely glue that ties everything together. When we are out, he keeps an eye on where the puppies are, which is usually ahead of us, and runs back to keep an eye on Sydney.