This couple went above and beyond to be reunited with their beloved dead dog.
Laura Jacques and Richard Remde from West Yorkshire lost their dog Dylan back in June, when the eight-year-old boxer died of a brain tumour.
According to The Guardian the pair were devastated by their loss, so they contacted the controversial Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea, which clones dogs for $100,000 (£67,000) a go – the only lab of its kind in the world.
Now a surrogate dog has given birth to their new puppy on Boxing Day, and it’s the first time one has been successfully cloned so long after the death of the original dog – two weeks after, the previous limit was five days.
Jacques told The Guardian:
The whole thing just feels surreal. I lost all sense of time. I have no idea how long everything took, the whole thing made me feel very disoriented. I was just clinging on to Richard for about an hour and a half after [the puppy] was born.
After they got him out I still couldn’t quite believe it had happened. But once he started making noises I knew it was real. Even as a puppy of just a few minutes old I can’t believe how much he looks like Dylan. All the colourings and patterns on his body are in exactly the same places as Dylan had them.
Apparently Sooam is the only company that provides this service, and they’ve already cloned about 700 dogs for commercial use.
David Kim, a Sooam scientist said:
This is the first case we have had where cells have been taken from a dead dog after a very long time. Hopefully it will allow us to extend the time after death that we can take cells for cloning.
Hopefully this means more people can be reunited with their beloved pets in the future, if they can afford the massive price tag…
