Cloned Dogs

Ever imagine cloning your pet? Snuppy (C), the world’s first dog cloned from adult cells by somatic nuclear cell transfer, and four cloned puppies pose for a photograph with researchers at Seoul National University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Seoul in this July 1, 2008 file photo. Two South Korean labs are offering pet owners the chance to clone dogs, but for those looking to bring back a beloved beagle, be ready to wait in line and have plenty of cash on hand.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Two South Korean labs are offering pet owners the chance to clone dogs, but for those looking to bring back a beloved beagle, be ready to wait in line and have plenty of cash on hand.

The Seoul-based labs — one affiliated to RNL Bio Co and the other to Sooam Biotech Research Foundation — are separated by about 30 km (20 miles) and bill themselves as the only places in the world where you can clone a cocker spaniel or retrieve a retriever, with costs running at about $50,000 (25,000 pounds) to $100,000.

But the labs are turning out far more copies of working dogs and endangered breeds than pets.

Customers such as South Korea’s customs service have cloned a champion sniffer dog, seeing the option as a cost-effective way to produce candidates for expensive training programs.

The customs service estimates the cost at 60 million won (30,128 pounds) per clone. It costs about twice that to breed and train a normal sniffer dog, but only about 30 percent are good enough to make the grade, it said.

“This all came about from the question of how we could secure dogs with superior qualities at a low price,” commissioner of the Korea Customs Service Hur Yong-suk said.

Near South Korea’s main international airport, trainers have been putting seven Labrador retrievers cloned from a top drug sniffing dog named Chase through their paces.

The seven clones, all named Toppy for “tomorrow’s puppy”, were produced in October and November last year by RNL Bio and seem to have the right stuff for the job, their trainer said.

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