Dog Cloning. What Do You Think?

April 29

Dog cloning is in the national news again. Lancelot, a yellow labrador retriever puppy has been delivered to a couple in Boca Raton this week.

Lancelot is not the first dog cloned (first in the United States for commercial purposes), but he is the most expensive. $155,000 was the price the couple paid to have their former dog cloned. A California biotech company called BioArts teamed with a South Korean company, Sooam Biotech Research, to clone the dog.

The 10-week-old golden Labrador retriever is a clone, created in South Korea by a California biotech firm from the DNA of the first Sir Lancelot, the beloved pet of Ed and Nina Otto of Boca Raton.

The leading scientist was Dr. Hwang Woo-suk who lost his research professorship at Seoul National University in 2004 after fraudulently claiming he had cloned human embryos and stem cells.

The original ”Lancelot” died last year. Five years ago the owners, Ed and Nina Otto, had cryogenically banked DNA samples hoping that some day they would be able to clone Lancelot. They did. His name is Lancelot Encore. You can see the video below.

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As a master trainer, I believe it is going to be hard to decide if Lancelot Encore is mentally and physically the same as the first Lancelot. After all, Lancelot Encore is going to be psychological shaped by a totally different world and set of scenarios than the first one.

I don’t think I would ever want my dog cloned. At any rate, my two best friends, Baron and Otwin will be buried with me one day. That is the highest form of love I can show them after they are gone.

At any rate, dog cloning is coming. What will you do?