By Jon Herskovitz
Thu Jul 17, 4:01 AM ET
SEOUL (Reuters) - Two South Korean labs are offering pet
owners the chance to clone dogs, but for those looking to bring
back a beloved beagle, be ready to wait in line and have plenty
of cash on hand.
The Seoul-based labs -- one affiliated to RNL Bio Co and
the other to Sooam Biotech Research Foundation -- are separated
by about 30 km (20 miles) and bill themselves as the only
places in the world where you can clone a cocker spaniel or
retrieve a retriever, with costs running at about $50,000
(25,000 pounds) to $100,000.
Customers such as South Korea's customs service have cloned
a champion sniffer dog, seeing the option as a cost-effective
way to produce candidates for expensive training programs.
The customs service estimates the cost at 60 million won
(30,128 pounds) per clone. It costs about twice that to breed
and train a normal sniffer dog, but only about 30 percent are
good enough to make the grade, it said.
