Let's consider what Snuppy represents.

That adorable 4 month old puppy represents 1095 donor eggs that were surgically harvested from 100 donor female dogs.
The original nucleus of each egg was then destroyed, removed and replaced with some ear cells that had been removed from the chosen dog and carefully nurtured and encouraged to multiply in a petri dish.
Out of all this, there were enough surviving eggs to implant 123 carefully chosen surrogates with 5 to 12 embryos each. -- Only 3 of the females became pregnant.

Two puppies were born. One of these spent 14 days suffering with pulmonary distress before dying, and one has survived to 9 months of age.

The odds of getting one puppy that survives to this age is .5%. (That’s ½ of 1%, pretty low odds for a $30,000 investment. Don’t you think?)

Scientists have found evidence that the telomeres of these cloned animals are the same length as the telomeres of the adult being cloned and are, therefore, not sure about the long-term health and survivability of these animals. Most scientific labs are not currently accepting applications from individuals for the cloning of their pets.

We would like to recommend to our clients that they give this new technology some time to grow. Pun definitely intended!

If you are still interested in more information, please consider the following websites:

A BBC News article about Snuppy

Another article about Snuppy

For an expanded definition of telomeres click here.