British Couple Spends Nearly $100,000 to Clone Late Dog

A couple from England has reason to celebrate this holiday season after finding a silver lining when their beloved dog died earlier in the year.

Laura Jacques and Richard Remde of Yorkshire, England paid nearly $100,000 to clone their deceased dog Dylan’s DNA at the Sooam Biotech Reseach Foundation in South Korea. The couple sent the sample containing the DNA in July and was thrilled when they received the news that two pregnancies have been established in surrogate dogs.

The first puppy, Chance – named after the Homeward Bound character — was born on December 26. Shadow, the second puppy, was born early Monday.

“The whole thing just feels surreal,” Jacques told The Guardian. “I lost all sense of time. I have no idea how long everything took, the whole thing made me feel very disoriented. I was just clinging on to Richard for about an hour and a half after Chance was born.”

The Sooam Biotech Reseach Foundation has been the leading lab in the world for dog cloning. They have produced more than 700 dogs for commercial customers, but not without some controversy.

Hwang Woo-suk, one of the leading researchers at the foundation previously claimed that he and a colleague from the Seoul National University created the first cloned human embryos and extracted stem cell from them. However, the report was later discredited. In 2009, Woo-suk was also charged with research funding embezzlement as well “as illegally buying human stem cells for this research,” reported CBS News.

Jacques and Remde have been documenting the whole journey over social media.

And they called it #PuppyLove https://t.co/C7CemnTiEo

— Dylan Dog (@WeLovedDylan) December 26, 2015

“After they got him out I still couldn’t quite believe it had happened. But once he started making noises I knew it was real. Even as a puppy of just a few minutes old I can’t believe how much he looks like Dylan. All the colorings and patterns on his body are in exactly the same places as Dylan had them,” shared Jacques.

The couple plans on bringing the puppies back to England next July when the quarantine period is over.