A South Korean company says it has taken its first order for the cloning of a pet dog.A woman from the United States wants her dead pitbull terrier - called Booger - re-created.
RNL Bio is charging the woman, from California, $150,000 (£76,000) to clone the pitbull using tissue extracted from its ear before it died.
The work will be carried out by a team from Seoul National University, where the first dog was cloned in 2005.
RNL Bio says this is the first time a dog will have been cloned commercially.
"There are many people who want to clone their pet dogs in Western countries even at this high price," company chief executive, Ra Jeong-chan, told the Korea Times.
he firm is expecting hundreds more orders for pets over the next few years and also plans to clone dogs trained to sniff out bombs or drugs.
One out of every four surrogate mother dogs produces puppies, according to RNL Bio's marketing director, Cho Seong-ryul.
"The cost of cloning a dog may come down to less than $50,000 as cloning is becoming an industry," he said.
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