Lady clones five pups from her pit bull.

[SmexyPibble]

Saw this when I opened my e-mail.
http://news.aol.com/article/woman-ge...317x1200353710

SEOUL, South Korea (Aug. 5) - Booger is back.
An American woman received five puppies Tuesday that were cloned from her beloved late pitbull, becoming the inaugural customer of a South Korean company that says it is the world's first successful commercial canine cloning service.

Seoul-based RNL Bio said the clones of Bernann McKinney's dog Booger were born last week after being cloned in cooperation with a team of Seoul National University scientists who created the world's first cloned dog in 2005.
"It's a miracle!" McKinney repeatedly shouted Tuesday when she saw the cloned Boogers at a Seoul National University laboratory.
"Yes, I know you! You know me, too!" McKinney said joyfully, hugging the puppies, which were sleeping with one of their two surrogate mothers, both Korean mixed breed dogs.
The team of scientists working for RNL Bio is headed by Lee Byeong-chun, a former colleague of disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who scandalized the international scientific community when his purported breakthroughs in cloned stem cells were revealed as fake in 2005.
Independent tests confirmed the 2005 dog cloning was genuine, and Lee's team has since cloned more than 20 canines.
But RNL Bio said that its cloning was the first successful commercial cloning of a canine.
"RNL Bio is commencing its worldwide services with Booger as its first successful clone," the company said in a statement.
McKinney contacted Lee after Booger died of cancer in April 2006. She had earlier asked U.S.-based Genetics Savings and Clone to clone her dog but the company shut down due to lack of demand in late 2006 after only producing a handful of cloned cats and failing to produce any dog clones.
The Korean scientists brought the dog's frozen cells to Seoul in March and nurtured them before launching formal cloning work in late May, according to RNL Bio.
Lee's team have identified the puppies as Booger's genuine clones, and his university's forensic medicine team is currently conducting reconfirmation tests.
McKinney said she was especially attached to Booger because he saved her life when she was attacked by another dog three times his size. The incident resulted in her left hand being mutilated, and injured her leg nerves and stomach. Doctors later reconstructed her hand and she spent part of her recovery in a wheelchair.

[Wimble Woof]

Great...
Clone them now, instead of rescuing them.
As a race we dont seem to be advancing in the right directions IMO.

[SmexyPibble]

Agreeable..

[Kayota]

Not sure what to think of this. Hmm.

[Lilavati]

I don't think anything more or less of it than cloning any other dog.

[Domestika]

Who names their animal "Booger"?
Geez...

[Boemy]

I find this kind of thing creepy. Everyone loves their pets, but . . . loss is a part of life. Love your pet, cherish his memory, but work on moving on and brightening the life of another pet. God knows there are enough pit bulls who need loving homes!

"Yes, I know you! You know me, too!" McKinney said joyfully, hugging the puppies.

No, they don't. They just met you for the first time. Just because they were cloned from your dog doesn't mean they magically "know" you. Arrrrrgh.

I feel sorry for the dogs. She clearly expects them to be exactly like her former dog . . . God help them if they end up with different personalities due to environmental factors.

[AGonzalez]

Does this remind anyone of that Arnold Swarzenegger movie with "Re-pet" the dog cloning thing in it?
Loss is inevitable. But that's one of the joys of life. Your friend has a good life and passes away, eventually you get another friend that doesn't have the same spot in your heart but a new one all of their own.
I don't think we should be messing with mother nature like this to be honest, in the wild it's survival of the fittest and nature, while cruel, has selection of which animals are to reproduce and thrive while others do not.

In the original article it stated that Booger died of cancer. So, will she endure the heartache of those puppies cloned from Booger being genetically predisposed to cancer?

[Lilavati]

I do have to wonder . . .what on Earth does she intend to do with FIVE genetically identical dogs. I can understand, in a sense, though I do not approve, wanting a clone of your beloved pet . . . but FIVE?

[SmexyPibble]

Lilavati, she wants to keep three and give the other two as service dogs.