Chloé Sharrocks

Selective breeding has taken on a new meaning after South Korea announced that the “world’s first cloned sniffer dogs” have reported for duty after completing a 16-month training programme.

The six dogs, named Toppy – a combination of “tomorrow” and “puppy” are part of a litter of seven puppies born in late 2007 who were cloned from a Canadian Labrador called Chase who was considered to be “superb” at sniffing out drugs being smuggled in/out of the country.  Only 6 went on to become official sniffer dogs, after one of the puppies had to withdraw from training due to injury.

According to the BBC website, the South Korean customs agency belies clones help to lower crime-fighting costs because it is difficult to find and then train good sniffer dogs.  Only about 30% of sniffer dogs reach the grade after training, but now scientists believe that using the cloning method this figure will rise to 90%.

Park Jeong-Heon, a customs spokesman at Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, told AFP news agency “They are the world’s first cloned sniffer dogs deployed at work.  They showed better performance in detecting illegal drugs during the training than other naturally-born sniffer dogs that we have.”

The scientists who carried out the cloning are based at Seoul National University and were the researchers responsible for creating the world’s first cloned dog – an Afghan Hound named Snuppy.  The project was state-funded and cost around 300m won, which is equivalent to around £140,000.

Researchers in South Korea announced at the end of last week that they had successfully created four beagle puppies that can glow red after using cloning techniques.

An innocent looking Beagle

Each of the four dogs is named “Ruppy” (a combination of the words “ruby” and “puppy”) and initially look like normal beagle puppies. On closer inspection it can be seen that the dogs’ nails and thick-skinned abdomens look red to the naked eye and when under ultraviolet light glow red.

Although previous experiments have accomplished the same feats in rats, mice and cats the researchers at Seoul National University are the first to create transgenic dogs carrying fluorescent genes.

Using skin cells from a normal beagle, the scientists added fluorescent genes and then inserted the cells into eggs which were implanted in a surrogate mother (a mixed breed bitch).

The significance of this experiment is that it shows scientists are capable of successfully inserting genes with a specific trait. This could lead to them being able to manipulate their knowledge of genetic engineering so that they can implant other (non-fluorescent genes) to treat specific diseases.

However this experiment raises many questions. As well as the ethical concerns of engineering animals in seemingly pointless and humorous ways it leads to concerns of the ways in which scientists can engineer living creatures. In years to come will it be possibly for quirky parents to not only make their children clever, tall and healthy, but will quirky characteristics – maybe glowing green so that they can spot them amongst their friends easier? As farcical as it may sound, it may indeed be possible in years to come – humans may start looking less human-like and more alien.

There are already some concerns about the dog breeding industry (look at the BBC’s retraction of television coverage of Crufts) – will this piece of research be the start of more breeding manipulation – will pink Labradors soon be the latest fashion with the likes of Paris Hilton?