Jan 29 2009Yay?: First Commercially Cloned Dog In US
Ed and Nina Otto are two rich crybabies that just couldn't deal with the cancer death of their dog Sir Lancelot Encore in January, 2008. So what did the couple do? Be happy with their eight other dogs? Adopt another one from the pound? Hell no, that would be too logical. Instead, the Otto's paid $155,000 to have Sir Crapalot cloned by South Korean company BioArts International.
"He's back with me," said Nina, "in terms of the essence of him, as much as you could probably expect to ever get back someone who died."
This is Sir Lancelot, as he was, when he was nice and healthy," said Nina Otto, "probably around the time that we actually took his DNA and froze it.""I know that to a lot of people spending that much money is ridiculous. I've heard some of my friends say 'On a dog?', but it wasn't just a dog. It was Lancelot."
No, he was just a dog. And, despite his name, he probably couldn't even wield a sword. And who's to say this one isn't going to get cancer too? Smart thinking. And on a side note, I have news for you folks: your dog isn't special to anyone but you -- everybody else thinks your dog is plain. Some of your friends probably even think it's sub-plain despite what they tell you to your face. No, the only truly special dog in this world is mine. Ooh, and that one that can walk on its back legs.
Pair Pay £100k To Clone Dead Pet [sky]
Thanks to Clint, whose efforts to clone his favorite turtle have failed.
Reader Comments
1. John - January 29, 2009 6:41 PM
...first.
2. Guido_b - January 29, 2009 6:43 PM
Second! Word!
3. Guido_B - January 29, 2009 6:45 PM
Maybe they can clone a dog that is already house broken, or one with lasers. I would take either.
4. gizmoduck - January 29, 2009 6:48 PM
ooo i'm going to give this a thumbs down.
its creepy.
your dog died so you had a clone to "get him back"
sorry, death took em cause it was their time. get over it. life comes and goes.
theres a time to live, but isn't strange and soon as you're born, you're dying.(maiden)
...
I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility... for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it.
5. Spam - January 29, 2009 6:57 PM
ZOMBIE
DOG
AHEAD
6. MadMonkey - January 29, 2009 6:57 PM
Welp, that's the most useless thing I've read all day. Old farts who can't let go and move on... pathetic.
Heads up, people.... YOU'RE GETTING A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DOG THAT LOOKS LIKE LANCELOT. IT IS NOT HIM.
Retards.
I didn't cry when my pet chicken died :(
7. Benjamin - January 29, 2009 7:12 PM
If the dog died the first time from cancer, and this clone has the same DNA...
8. Spikey DaPikey - January 29, 2009 7:14 PM
Didnt they do this in a Arnie film ???
Wrong, just wrong. I hope it pee's all over them.
9. Nikky Raney - January 29, 2009 7:26 PM
Is it going to die just like the lamb?
10. wazmeister - January 29, 2009 7:28 PM
Just throwing this out there, but what'll happen if the owner dies before Lancelot? He probably won't be cloning him any time soon
11. Ravlar - January 29, 2009 7:34 PM
Hate to be your editor here, but the dog that died was Sir Lancelot. The Van Damme replicant was Sir Lancelot Encore
12. science of identity foundation - January 29, 2009 7:41 PM
I'm sorry but sometimes, it's just time to let go! Let go of the dog man ...get a new one (but not a cloned one for like a loaaaad of money.
13. blp - January 29, 2009 7:41 PM
I want to be cloned, just so I can call him mini-me while he's growing up.
14. Cameron - January 29, 2009 7:41 PM
I just can't imagine sharing my apartment with some dirty, dependent animal willing to trade a little unconditional love for canned food that, to be honest, I find a little salty.
15. Cameron - January 29, 2009 7:42 PM
And no, I wasn't bitten by a dog as a kid or raised by cats.
16. Daisy - January 29, 2009 7:44 PM
FAKE!!!!
This is a complete photoshop job. You can tell its a fake because the shadow's are all wrong.
This is exactly like that scene in the movie Never Back Down where Max took a job as a night janitor in a college and finished the equations on the math teachers blackboard.
17. Cameron - January 29, 2009 7:47 PM
Daisy, I would like to thank you. Now we all know why some animals eat their own children.
18. Pew³ - January 29, 2009 7:50 PM
I'm a clone.
19. Moose Knuckle - January 29, 2009 7:51 PM
The lack of humility before nature that's being displayed here, uh... staggers me.
20. Cameron - January 29, 2009 7:54 PM
Well, thank you, Dr.Malcolm, but I think things are a little bit different... then what you and I feared.
21. Moose Knuckle - January 29, 2009 7:55 PM
These scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should
22. Pew³ - January 29, 2009 7:57 PM
But, John. If the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists
23. Cameron - January 29, 2009 7:58 PM
I agree.
But it makes me think : Would there be a market for genetic "factory seconds" and "irregulars"?
24. Pew³ - January 29, 2009 8:02 PM
But again, how do you know they're all female? Does someone go into the park and, uh... lift up the dinosaurs' skirts?
25. Tim - January 29, 2009 8:03 PM
Daisy should've died of the cancer instead of lancelot. I hope the Ottos are happy with their new Lancelot.
26. Timbo - January 29, 2009 8:09 PM
@ 4 Gizmoduck....You sooooo stole that from Jurassic park!!
27. Cameron - January 29, 2009 8:11 PM
Poor Gizmoduck. His source of all his comments has been found out.
28. Jenn - January 29, 2009 8:14 PM
Yellow Labs are very often genetically predisposed to develop cancer. I hope they got over the initial shock, since they'll be going through it again because this one is guaranteed to develop it as well. Did anyone inform them of this?
29. formerly SPELLINGNAZI© - January 29, 2009 8:19 PM
@ 26: Thank you Captain Obvious.
30. Awwww c'mon - January 29, 2009 8:58 PM
Come on, folks, they're old people. They're elderly. If you want to judge them because you're morally against cloning, fine. That's your ethical stance. But if you want to judge them because they "can't let go" and you think it's "pathetic"... well, that just makes you petty.
Mind you, if I had that kind of money, I'd never spend it on cloning a dog, but hey, it's their cash.
31. Thumperchica - January 29, 2009 11:22 PM
Have they not seen pet semetary? dodododo GAGE! NO!
32. gizmoduck - January 29, 2009 11:23 PM
i'm back bitch's
and yes JP rules....
congo rules
predators rules
strangers...not so much
33. mrrgl - January 29, 2009 11:42 PM
Its only the tip of the iceberg. Fact: 40% of all Australian actors are clones.
34. Panic - January 30, 2009 2:16 AM
That two legged dog filled me with both hope and sadness.
35. K4ot1K - January 30, 2009 2:20 AM
No Cujo comments? Really?
These people are dead, they just don't know it yet.
36. c45 - January 30, 2009 3:24 AM
hope in future.. its possible to preserver memories, and switch to new cloned body.. to live forever.
37. eggs - January 30, 2009 7:19 AM
@#30 You're right, the money is theirs to spend however they please, but that does not stop this from being a silly decision. I think I speak for everyone when I say we could think of better things to do with that money. And clone =/= original. Even fur colour on cloned cats can turn out different (random inactivation and all that). Plus genes=/= destiny. They haven't gotten their Lancelot back, unfortunately.
38. DinosaurHumper - January 30, 2009 7:42 AM
Are you guys aware of the implications of such an act? Props to that old man right there for being such a revolutionary.
On a separate note, who wants to run a train on a pterodactyl with me?
39. Aaron - January 30, 2009 8:27 AM
my dogs got three legs and does a handstand when he pees
i think mines better then that
40. Tricky Ricky - January 30, 2009 8:58 AM
Encore? isn't that also the name of a cheap brand of frozen food?
Nice tie in for when they froze the D.N.A sample...wouldn't it have been easier to get a sperm sample from the first mutt and do in vitro instead?
First it was freeze drying your pets and turning them into paperweights,
Now this.?
Funny thing is..Daisy has already been cloned, and look how that turned out...
41. Quase - January 30, 2009 9:27 AM
FUUUUUUUUUU.... So many children going hungry right now, and this bitch spends 170k on a f***ING DOG? Got to hell bi-atch
42. Anita Bath - January 30, 2009 11:31 AM
Meh, you're all a bunch of knee-jerk reactionaries. There's no difference between a clone and a pair of twins—I mean, this is basically Sir Lancelot's son. These guys got their pooch back, good for them. And 41: people starving is not the fault of rich people, it's the fault of the arrogant cockcheeses who get elected into office by starving people.
43. Joshua Simone - January 30, 2009 12:28 PM
This guy just wasted his money. Cloned animals only live for a short period of time. I don't think we have been able to successfully clone an animal and have it even live up to half of the life of the original.
44. Jen - January 30, 2009 12:50 PM
HAHAHAHAHA. That made me laugh really hard. Oh Jeff Goldblum.
@ 21. Moose Knuckle - January 29, 2009 7:55 PM
These scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should
45. pollypickle - January 30, 2009 1:01 PM
the saddest thing of all is that these folks have zero capacity to admit they would eat lil ole Lancelot there were they to ever actually experience true hunger. I, on the other hand, would eat him any time, any day. Cuz that's just how I roll.
46. spiritkittykat - January 30, 2009 1:06 PM
Isn't letting something go when it dies, part of life? I mean, I had a cat that died when I was little and I cried forever over her, but I got over it. These people could have donated the money they spent to a shelter and also got a new dog from a shelter. Instead, they spend oodles of money on cloning a dog they loved only to get a different dog. Chances are it's gonna have a different personality.
Whatever.
47. asdadas - January 30, 2009 1:08 PM
It's their money to waste on whatever they like. And I'm completely sure they know the dog's just a clone and not the same dog and that is surely going to get the same cancer. They've spent a 155k on cloning their deceased dog, do you think they haven't been informed about the whole damn thing?
And it's a dog, not a human, the dog doesn't care if he's been cloned, so there's no stupid moral or ethics involved (unless you're some wacky vegan antispecist).
48. Jim Jones - January 30, 2009 5:26 PM
This is damned insulting. Don't they know how many dogs are in shelters and are euthanized every year that they could have helped with that money, or adopted? No, they'd rather pretend that they got away with cheating death.
49. Spam Artist - January 30, 2009 6:02 PM
FAKE!!!!
This is a complete phote oh shop job. You can tell its fake because the shadow's are all wrong.
This is exactly like that scene in the movie TendER Dracula where one of the drunk french actresses wants to have her pet sampled and copied. She is shot at by some scum in shades and then replaced.
Her wife, one of the drunken overdubbed make up artists, never notices the difference.
50. NekoNeko - January 30, 2009 11:51 PM
(sighs) I can understand their emotions, but it's just going to be an even sadder death when the pup dies a year or two later. All cloned animals die incredibly early deaths due to premature old age. Some don't even get the chance because they get incredibly sick because whatever bad stuff was in their genes (in this case cancer) seems to run at an equally fast rate. They may have their dog back, but it's going to be even sadder when the dog dies in a year or two & they realized they spent almost a quarter of a million dollars for something that didn't have the life expectancy of a regular dog.
Nobody knows exactly why all cloned animals have shorter lives, so there's no way to prevent it. Goodness knows the labs have tried, but even with the best care they don't last past 1-2 years. (Unless they're a specific type of animal like a sheep or a monkey.)
51. zirughci - February 2, 2009 6:53 PM
but it's a totally different dog. different personality. and if you're going to clone a dog in the first place, at least clone a unique-looking mutt!!! not a plain old boring lab!
these people have no life. and they're idiots. and they waste their money.
they should get a dog from the shelter instead.
52. Elektra - March 10, 2009 1:55 PM
I wonder if among all the screamers here there are people who have evn just a third of the dogs those people have.
I am pretty sure you don't. I can't see you having the responsibility of an animal.
You all sound like the kind of people who need a map to find their own butt.