Former Halifax police officer Jamie Symington says he is now training five puppies cloned from his dog Trakr, several years after the two helped pull survivors from the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001
The pups (Trustt, Solace, Valor, Prodigy and Deja vu) will be trained to respond to emergency situations as "Team Trakr," said Symington.
Scientists from BioArts International used Trakr's DNA to create the clones after Symington won an essay contest sponsored by the lab to clone one deserving dog for free. The cost for the procedure is usually about US$140,000 for each dog, but the lab managed to produce the five clones for roughly US$300,000.
"I always knew they would look something like Trakr did, or at least I suspected they would. When I met them for the first time, it was even more striking of a similarity than I even suspected," said Symington.
His five German Shepherd puppies arrived at his home in Los Angeles last week, but Symington said they can't replace his "one-in-a-million" dog Trackr, who died at age 16 in April.
While on medical leave, Symington took Trackr to the World Trade Center to help with search and rescue mission after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Witnesses say Trackr helped pull the last survivor from the wreckage.
Once the two returned home, the Halifax police force fired Symington for working while on leave. He then moved to Los Angeles in 2005 to run a talent agency.
Last year, he learned of the contest held by the Californian-based lab and entered an essay describing why Trakr deserves to be cloned.
The pair won the competition shortly after, with BioArts declaring that Trakr was the most "clone-worthy dog."
The lab, located in Mill Valley, Calif., just north of San Francisco, then sent tissue samples from Trackr to the South Korean lab of Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, of Sooam Biotech Research Foundation.
Woo-suk is the researcher who caused an international controversy when it was discovered that he had falsely reported cloning human stem cells.
However, scientists did verify he and his team produced the world's first cloned dog.
To prove the results of his latest cloning procedure, BioArts said it had another lab conduct the DNA testing.
When asked if the company chose to carry out the testing because of Woo-suk's previous controversy, BioArts Chief Executive Officer Lou Hawthorne replied, "that was one of the reasons," he told Â鶹´«Ã½ on Thursday.
"We're not defending him in the past. We're simply saying that he delivers for us, consistently," he added.
With a report from Â鶹´«Ã½' Tom Walters
