DOGS CLONED FOR DRUG SNIFFING

INCHEON, South Korea - Some dogs are destined to catch Frisbees,
others to sniff out the bad guys.

At least that is what South Korea customs officials believe after
ordering seven cloned copies of one of the best drug-sniffing dogs
ever to poke a nose in bags at the airport.

The puppies, born last fall, are clones of a Labrador retriever named
Chase, judged by the customs service to be one of their top dogs.

They have been in training almost since birth and show strong signs of
possessing the genes -- and noses -- necessary to combat narcotics
trafficking, according to the Korea Customs Service. "The differences
are so small that I really can't tell the puppies apart," trainer Kim
Nak-seung said Thursday.

This first batch of clones share the name "Toppy," short for
"tomorrow's puppy." They all usually "heel" together when their
collective name is called and are individually identified by a scanner
than reads a microchip in their ears.

The customs service called on a laboratory affiliated with Seoul
National University, which produced the world's first cloned dog,
Afghan hound Snuppy, to make copies of Chase.

The dogs were cloned using so-called somatic cell nuclear transfer, a
technique of hollowing out the nucleus of a donor egg and injecting it
with the donor father's genetic materials.

Since the lab receives state funding, the customs service did not have
to pay for the first batch of canine copies. The customs service
estimates the cost at 60 million won ($60,470) each.

It costs about twice that to breed and train a normal sniffer dog, but
only about 30 per cent are good enough to make the grade. "This all
came about from the question of how we could secure dogs with superior
qualities at a low price," commissioner of the Korea Customs Service
Hur Yong-suk said.

The clones are expected to complete training by 2009.