The boxer was born in South Korea on Boxing Day after being replicated from DNA from their beloved eight-year-old dog Dylan, who died in June. The boxer was born in South Korea on Boxing Day after being replicated from DNA from their beloved eight-year-old dog Dylan, who died in June.
London - Eyes firmly shut, his little tongue sticking out, this bundle of fur is the cloned puppy a British couple paid £67 000 (about R140 000) to create in a lab.
The boxer was born in South Korea on Boxing Day after being replicated from DNA from their beloved eight-year-old dog Dylan, who died in June.
The puppy, named Chance, is the first in the world to be duplicated from an animal that had been dead for as long as 12 days.
Laura Jacques, 29, and her partner Richard Remde, 43, were warned that the limit for dog cloning was five days after the death of the DNA donor animal.
But the couple, from Silsden, West Yorkshire, decided to take the risk and sent a skin sample to Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, which produced two embryos.
Miss Jacques, a dog walker, described the birth of the puppy, by caesarean section to a surrogate mother, as “a miracle”. A second puppy is due to be delivered on Tuesday.
“Even as a puppy of just a few minutes old I can’t believe how much he looks like Dylan,” said Miss Jacques. “All the colourings and patterns on him are in exactly the same places.”
Mr Remde, who runs a building business, added: “I was much more overwhelmed with emotion at the birth than I expected to be.”
The couple, who flew to Seoul for the birth, named Chance after a character in Miss Jacques’ favourite film, Disney’s Homeward Bound. Miss Jacques said: “I’m trying to get my head round the fact that this puppy has 100 percent of the same DNA as Dylan. I had had Dylan since he was a puppy. I mothered him so much, he was my baby, my child, my entire world.”
The couple, who have been together for six years, are the first Britons to pay to have their dog cloned from a dead animal. Dylan died of a heart attack having been diagnosed with a brain tumour.
They heard about Sooam from a documentary on UK dog owner Rebecca Smith who had her living dachshund cloned. Miss Jacques and Mr Remde took the DNA samples from Dylan themselves after Sooam provided them with a kit to take a biopsy from the dog’s abdomen. To clone a dog, the lab in Seoul implants DNA into a dog egg that has had its nucleus removed.
The egg is given electric shocks to start cell division and it is then implanted into a surrogate animal.
The couple, who have four dogs and 11 other animals, said they know some people will think they are crazy for spending so much. Mr Remde said: “We are not mad. We are dog-mad though, and we both absolutely love all animals.”
The Sooam lab has cloned 700 dogs. Cloning humans in Europe is illegal, but there is no law against cloning a pet, although the RSPCA has expressed serious concerns.
Daily Mail