The Golden Clone Giveaway

I nearly spat out my coffee when I read this headline: Korean Researchers to Clone Sept. 11 Rescue Dog.

But it’s true. And it gets SOOO much stranger.

First off, the dog in question, a 15 year old ailing German shepherd named Trakr, is winner of BioArts International’s Golden Clone Giveaway contest. Here’s a video of Trakr’s story which explains why he’s the winner: it vacillates between being TOTALLY surreal and TOTALLY weepy (just wait until the end; I dare you not to get a bit misty).

The contest is run under the umbrella of BioArt’s ”Best Friends Again” program. Yes that’s right, as in let’s be best friends again after you, my dearly beloved dog, pass away.

You see, BioArts, a bioengineering company in California, held a competition to find the world’s most “clone-worthy” dog. The winner, whomever the lucky hound be, got to be cloned for free. And that lucky winner happened to be Trakr, who made himself a hero locating the last human survivor under 10 meters of debris at Ground Zero shortly after 9/11.

(The whole Trakr story is WAY more endearing than just that. Turns out Trakr was a retired police dog from the Halifax Regional Police force when his handler Constable Jamie Symington decided to call in “sick” so that he and Trakr could venture down to NYC to save some lives. You can see photos of the hero hound (and his mildly hunky handler)here.)

Well Trakr already escaped death once: Jamie saved him from the police dept.’s policy to euthanise its retired canines. Sadly (and by sadly I mean heart-crushingly weepy) today Trakr can no longer use his hind legs due to “a degenerative neurological disorder that is linked to exposure to toxic smoke at the site” reports Chosunilbo, the Korean newspaper.

Within the next month, BioArts will send a sample of Trakr’s somatic cell genes to Dr. Hwang Woo-suk’s lab so that the previously disgraced Korean scientist can clone the diseased dog. Trakr the puppy will be due in November. If it’s a go, then it appears that the dog’s genes and doc’s rep will both get reprieve.