The company we reported on last year, Genetic Savings and Clone, hasn't yet managed to clone a dog, though they had said they expected to do so in 2005 using their chromatin transfer technique. They are a fair number of kittens down the line, but so far the original goal of cloning billionaire John Sperling's mutt "Missy" has eluded them. Meanwhile the dog owners are queuing up for the day when dog cloning eventually becomes comercially viable.
And surprise, surprise! A prestigious breeder of SHOW SIBERIAN HUSKIES is one of the "early adopters"! Dr. David Qualls DVM of Indigo Kennels in Florida wants to clone his Siberian Husky bitch CH. INDIGO'S INVISIBLE TOUCH! Here's the GS&C link to prove it (just scroll down past the first couple of clients)
http://www.savingsandclone.com/clients/and_dogs.html
And oh, the shame of it all. Curious fool that I am, I checked out her pedigree via PawVillage:
http://pawvillage.com/pedigree/pedigree.asp?ID=AWSH8441
Only to discover that this is a descendant of my long-ago 1960's sidekick CAN. CH. TROIKA'S BOIKA, via a daughter of hers TADLUK'S BOIKA REPLICA that I bred when I was green and ignorant, by the expedient of breeding BOIKA back to her sire ALAKAZAN ZHOOLIK O'RACECREST (whom I very shortly thereafter discovered was epileptic as well as pathologically shy). I'm not proud of the breeding, notwithstanding it seems to be part of the "star" pedigree of CH. INNISFREE'S NEWSCENTS NIAVAR. I learned better breeding practices pretty quickly. But it looks like the showdog people never learn . . .
I'm not that happy to learn that I'm involved in SH breed history yet again, not by that avenue! Interestingly enough, AKC's present policy is that they will not register a clone -- but one has to suspect that perhaps Dr. Quall's knows something the rest of us do not know as yet, or that he has "political" connections in AKC. The GS&C story makes a big point of the SH clone-candidate being the result of "twenty-five years of effort" and of Dr. Quall's seeing the cloning as "a fantastic opportunity to preserve our efforts." So one could see this as a straw in the wind or a trial balloon.
AKC showdogs of the Siberian Husky breed already display a cookie-cutter similarity for the most part. What will it be like when and if AKC decides that the $30,000-50,000 cloning process (the price isn't set yet for dogs, but we are warned it will be more expensive than it is for cats) is just another tool in the AKC showdog breeder's kit?
For what it's worth, I. S. A. and W. C. A. C. do not allow "reprotech" solutions in the Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed. There will be NO cloned Seppalas in our future.
Posted by ditkoofseppala at May 14, 2006 06:19 PM