Local Man Pays Big Bucks to Clone Canine
By: Nina Criscuolo
Updated: November 16, 2012
A Louisiana man spends big bucks to get back man's best friend.
After his blue tick hound passed away, the man contacted cloning experts in South Korea for a second chance with the pooch and is making history in the process.
"It's the most exciting thing I think we've done as a clinic... He's the same personality, the same bark. It is strange to me to see a 13-year-old dog and then see him started over as a clone puppy," says Dr. Clark Cooper.
At first glance Gator may seem like your typical tail-wagger, but in reality this blue tick hound is a particular pooch.
"There's only five or six dogs in the United States," says Cooper, who has been connected to this canine far before his birth.
"I knew his clone," he says.
Cooper and the other vets at his clinic took tissue from Gator's predecessor. Then extracted, froze, and preserved dna from the sample and then sent it to one of only two men in the entire world who can successfully clone a canine.
"Everybody else is failing at it and these two guys actually made it happen," says Cooper.
Often pooches are being reproduced identically for medical studies, but in other cases it's man trying to keep a mutt's memory alive. "There's some people who say this is my favorite and I want another one of him," says Cooper.
In Gator's case, Cooper says he'll also be responsible for saving a specific genetic line.
"He's one of a few in a family line that we can't produce, so we won't be able to have any more if we can't reproduce him."
And the cost is no puppy price tag. Cooper says cloning a dog costs about 100-thousand dollars or even more. A bill some say is worth paying for man's best friend.
"It's really neat to say West Monroe, Louisiana has a clone when the others are in California and Florida. A lot of things can be done here," says Cooper.
After his blue tick hound passed away, the man contacted cloning experts in South Korea for a second chance with the pooch and is making history in the process.
"It's the most exciting thing I think we've done as a clinic... He's the same personality, the same bark. It is strange to me to see a 13-year-old dog and then see him started over as a clone puppy," says Dr. Clark Cooper.
At first glance Gator may seem like your typical tail-wagger, but in reality this blue tick hound is a particular pooch.
"There's only five or six dogs in the United States," says Cooper, who has been connected to this canine far before his birth.
"I knew his clone," he says.
Cooper and the other vets at his clinic took tissue from Gator's predecessor. Then extracted, froze, and preserved dna from the sample and then sent it to one of only two men in the entire world who can successfully clone a canine.
"Everybody else is failing at it and these two guys actually made it happen," says Cooper.
Often pooches are being reproduced identically for medical studies, but in other cases it's man trying to keep a mutt's memory alive. "There's some people who say this is my favorite and I want another one of him," says Cooper.
In Gator's case, Cooper says he'll also be responsible for saving a specific genetic line.
"He's one of a few in a family line that we can't produce, so we won't be able to have any more if we can't reproduce him."
And the cost is no puppy price tag. Cooper says cloning a dog costs about 100-thousand dollars or even more. A bill some say is worth paying for man's best friend.
"It's really neat to say West Monroe, Louisiana has a clone when the others are in California and Florida. A lot of things can be done here," says Cooper.
