Would You Want To Clone Your Pup For $100,000?

Up until last year I didn’t think this was possible, but at the Sooam Biotech, pup cloning is possible and a successful. One such case inside.

Dr. Phillip Dupont and his wife Paula, who both work at the Dupont Veterinary Clinic in Lafayette, LA. have cloned their two pups called Henry and Ken from their last pup called Melvin.

Credit: NPR

The pups look alike, they’re slim, with floppy ears and long snouts. They’re both tan, gray and white, with almost similar markings. Paula said, “I put a red collar on Ken and a black collar on Henry so I can tell who’s who.“

But How’s That Possible?

Well the scientists at Sooam Biotech, a suburban company near Seoul, South Korea, developed the technology to create cloned canines. Yes they injected one of Melvin’s skin cells that contained all his DNA into a donor end, which they emptied of it’s original DNA. But why did the Duponts decide to clone Melvin? Here’s what they said.

Credit: NPR

Phillip said, “He was different. Of all the dogs I had, he was completely different. I paid $50 for him. But I wasn’t going to return it. I thought for a while I was going to put him to sleep. Turned out to be the best dog I ever owned. He listened. You could talk to him and you swore he understood what you were talking about. It was weird.”

So when Melvin was nine and growing old, the couple went to Sooam Biotech in South Korea and for $100,000 the couple decided to have Melvin’s clone. The first pup however died from distemper, but when they tried again they produced two healthy clones.

Credit: NPR

Dr. Phillip, after seeing the pups said that Ken and Henry “are so much like Melvin, it’s unreal.” When they took them home, it was like having three Melvins at home, but in less than two years, Melvin passed away. For Dr. Phillip is was very hard to deal with, but having the clones made the loss a little easier to deal with. He was quoted saying, “They come running through the house and jump in your lap — a 75-pound dog sitting in your lap, watching TV.“

But Is This A Good Idea?

Mostly people who have lost their pups opt to clone their pups. According to Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University, “If you love dogs and you really want to have your companion animal cloned, you really do need to take very seriously the health and well-being of all the dogs that would be involved in this process.”

Hyun says that in order to clone a dog, other dog has to act as a donor and this means that a dog has to go through certain surgical procedures for surrogacy. Most of the time it doesn’t work and so many attempt are required to produce a single clone. “I think there are probably better ways to spend $100,000 if you really care about animals,” Hyun says. But the Duponts are so happy with the result that the wouldn’t mind doing it again.

Credit: NPR

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