South Florida Couple Gets First Commercially Cloned Dog

Six years ago, a Boca Raton family froze their dog Lancelot's DNA. Monday they picked up their new pooch that just happens to have all their former dog's genes.

"The only sad thing about dogs is that they have such a short life, wouldn't it be wonderful if you could live your life with the same dog," said Nina Otto, Lancy's owner. Turns out you can... sort of.

"It truthfully is amazing to me that this process has come to be and that I am getting, if not my dog, certainly the essence of Lancelot and it looks so much like him that, well... He's a clone, so he should look like him," said Otto. "Lancy was the first dog, commercially that they did clone because his DNA was frozen and very viable."

Bioarts International CEO Lou Hawthorne, a cloning and stem cell research guru, brought little Lancy to Miami International Airport from Korea. The adorable Lancy is cute as a button, but a clone is a walking controversy. "People think that cloning dogs is a stepping stone to cloning people. Dogs are actually harder to clone than people," said Hawthorne.

The 3-month old puppy is reportedly a clone of a canine the Otto family just couldn't live without, their yellow 11-year-old Labrador Sir Lancelot, who died last year on New Year's Eve. "Lancelot was very human and he... He just... We used to call him our prince charming, " said Otto.

The price of royalty is steep. For what it cost to buy a modest home or fancy car, the Ottos cloned the dog they say was worth so much more. "It cost over 150-thousand dollars, so it was a lot of money. So, as I said before I did sell something that was precious to me to get something that was even more precious to me," said Otto.

Nina Otto sold some big time jewelry to finance what she describes as the future. "Yes, it's expensive now, but as we know with everything, once it becomes college knowledge, it loses its value and it will become less expensive, " said Otto.

Sitting on 12 acres in Boca Raton, the Ottos have 9 dogs, 4 birds, 10 cats, 6 sheep and now little Lancy. The bright ray of life will fit in just fine, but in a dim economic climate why would someone spend six figures on a dog. "It was last may. I probably, at this point and time I would've said, you know, we really shouldn't do it, it's just economically not a good idea, but it was done, so thank god and thank god... The money is gone and he's here and that's what's more important to me," said Otto.

[Source: msnbc]