World's first cloned sniffer dogs

Customs officers in South Korea have deployed the world's first cloned sniffer dogs to check for drugs at its main airport and border crossings.

Six puppies cloned from a Canadian-born sniffer dog in late 2007 have reported for duty after completing a 16-month training programme.

The clones are all called Toppy, a combination of "tomorrow" and "puppy", reports the BBC.

The customs agency says clones help to lower crime-fighting costs as it is difficult to find good sniffer dogs.

Only about 30% of naturally-born sniffer dogs make the grade, but South Korean scientists say that could rise to 90% using the cloning method.

The new recruits were cloned from a "superb" drug-sniffing Canadian Labrador retriever called Chase in 2007, officials said.

"They are the world's first cloned sniffer dogs deployed at work," said Park Jeong-Heon, a customs spokesman at Seoul's Incheon International Airport.

"They showed better performances in detecting illegal drugs during the training than other naturally-born sniffer dogs that we have."

The cloning work was conducted by a team of scientists at Seoul National University, who created the world's first cloned dog - an Afghan Hound named Snuppy.

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