Would I Clone My Dog? Dr. Karyn Faces Temptation
Hi, I’m Dr. Karyn! Read my introduction to learn more about me and my five funny dogs, Poppy, Bailey, Kodah, Ned, and Fred.
What I love about my work here at Dogster, apart from being able to share all the fun and foibles of my household of dogs and cats, is being able to share my knowledge and experience about pet health and behavior. Part of that process is researching different topics and subjects that I haven’t experienced myself, and one such example happened a few weeks ago when I was looking into the subject of cloning pets. Until recently, I didn’t realize just how far this area has progressed since Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal back in 1996,1 and that pet cloning wasn’t just a distant possibility, but rather a reality that people are already experiencing for themselves.
2005 saw the birth of the world’s first cloned dog, an Afghan Hound called Snuppy. In order to achieve this miracle, 123 surrogate females were implanted with embryos, of which just three became pregnant.2 Of those three, only two carried to term, and one of those passed away at three weeks due to respiratory problems. This left one successful clone, Snuppy, who went on to live for 11 years. The cloning process has been finetuned over the years, with far more success and far fewer embryos needed, but there is still a distinct lack of information available about what goes on behind the scenes.
