If you’ve ever owned a dog, you know that they are more than just an animal, they are more than just a pet, and for some, they become an extension of the family. This is why whenever a dog passes away, it’s not quite as simple as just going out and finding a new one. However, one family took it to the next level.
When it was time for Alicia and David Tschirhart to say goodbye to their beloved pet labrador, Marley, they simply couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Instead, what they did was they cloned Marley which resulted in a new dog that they have since named Ziggy. According to the couple, they claim that Ziggy has the same personality as Marley, where Ziggy favors the same toys as Marley and that he plays the same way.
While it sounds like something out of a sci-fi story, cloning animals isn’t new. Some of you might remember the first animal that was cloned, the sheep Dolly. It is also not the first time that a pet has been cloned where over in South Korea, a sniffer dog that had was known for his “legendary” nose was cloned to produce seven other sniffer dogs.
The couple cloned their dog by taking a tissue sample from it where it was then sent to ViaGen, a company that specializes in cloning, who then cultured new living cells from the sample and later took one of those samples and replaced the nucleus of a female dog’s egg with it, where the resulting birth will be a clone of the original animal.
Filed in . Read more about Science. Source: edition.cnn