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The cloned puppies will be named Chance and Shadow
British couple clones their dead dog at a private clinic in South Korea for £67,000 (about $100,000). The first clone was born on December 26 with the second one coming on the 29th.
Besides being the first cloned boxer, the dog is also making history as the first dog cloned from an organism dead for almost two weeks.
Richard Remde and Laura Jacques from UK found out in June that their eight year old boxer has an inoperable brain tumor. The dog, Dylan, died a few weeks after, leaving his humans in grief. Being unable to cope with the pain, the couple decided to look for ways of bringing their puppy back and they found online a South Korean clinic which offers commercial dog-cloning services – the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation.
The two cloned puppies will be named Chance (the first one) and Shadow (the second one) after two characters from Jacques’ favorite movie- Homeward Bound.
The British couple has watched the C-section birth livestreamed from Sooam’s clinic operating theatre, an experience they will never forget. Jacques says she has lost track of time and couldn’t believe it was happening. She was amazed by how much the newborn puppy resembled Dylan, having all the colorings and patterns in the same places on his body.
Remde also admits that he was more overwhelmed with emotion than he expected, while watching the birth.
Jacques, who had Dylan since he was a puppy and loved and cared for him as if she was his mother, has a hard time processing the fact that Chance has exactly the same DNA as Dylan and she tells herself that the pup is one of Dylan’s puppies.
Scientists at Sooam have already cloned more than 700 dogs for different customers around the world. However, Chance’s birth was expected with excitement since it was for the first time when they cloned a dog using cells from an animal dead 12 days before.
However, time will tell if this is a story with happy ending. The RSPCA has issued a warning concerning dog cloning in which they argued that the procedures cause pain and distress and at the same time the rates of failure and mortality are extremely high. More than that, some evidence shows that cloned animals might heave health problems including physical ailments and other disease.
However, the couple hopes that everything will go well and they plan to adopt both of the puppies’ mothers and bring all four dogs to the UK at the end of the quarantine period in July.
Image source: pixabay
