ohmidog!

Five German shepherds cloned from the cells of an award-winning search and rescue dog were unveiled today at a press conference in Beverly Hills.

With a poster of his original police dog, Trakr, behind him, cop-turned-actor James Symington choked up in his remarks as he stood behind a podium adorned with an American and a Korean flag.

The retired Halifax, Nova Scotia, police officer took possession of the five dogs this weekend — his prize for winning the “Golden Clone Giveaway,” an essay contest sponsored by BioArts International, a California biotech company that is cloning dogs in conjunction with a Korean scientist.

Symington said that if the puppies have the same abilities as Trakr — and he’s seen some signs they might — he intends to put them to work as search and rescue dogs.

Symington and Trakr took part in the rescue operation after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. Symington says Trakr located the last survivor pulled from the rubble of Ground Zero.

Originally, Symington was to receive a single clone of the dog.

“We were going to do one, maybe two,” said BioArts CEO Lou Hawthorne. “But we decided collectively that the world would be a better place with more Trakrs.”

Hawthorne says Symington hopes to train all five dogs in search and rescue and work with them as a team, responding to crisis areas around the world.

Trakr died in April at the age of 16.

BioArts auctioned off five other dog clonings last summer to bidders in an online auction. Hawthorne said two of those cloned dogs have been delivered, and that a third will be delivered soon. The fourth has been born, and the fifth cloning has resulted in a pregnancy.

The cloning was done at  the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea and was led by Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk, who produced the world’s first canine clone in 2005.  The first Takr clone was born on Dec. 8 of  last year and the last arrived April 4.

The Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter is seeking the public’s help in an investigation into the death of a tortured and executed cat whose remains were brought to BARCS this morning by Baltimore City Animal Control.

The cat’s body was found tied to a fence in the 3700 block of Lewiston Avenue in Baltimore. According to Debra Rahl of BARCS, it was wrapped with a blue cord and had a heavy chain around its neck that was attached to a utility pole.

The cat’s head was placed on a “96 shot Phantom Fireball Display.”

The hair on the cat’s head was completely singed off, and it had multiple contusions and bruises to its body. Its right front leg was broken above the elbow and it had a 6 centimeter wound in its left shoulder area. There was an odor of a gunpowder type substance on the body.

This is the second cat  found tortured and killed in the area  in the past two weeks , BARCS said. The first cat was also found with a blue cord around its neck.

Retired police officer James Symington will receive five clones of his late search and rescue dog, Trakr, at a press conference in Los Angeles today.

BioArts International, a Northern California biotech company, will be presenting Symington with five puppies – all clones of Trakr — at a press conference.

Symington, who says his retired police dog found the last survivor of 9/11, won the “Golden Clone Giveaway” contest sponsored by BioArts International in 2008. His essay explained why Trakr was an ideal candidate for cloning.

The company’s other dog cloning clients — one of five dogs cloned for customers in connection with an online auction has been delivered –have paid an average of $144,000 to clone their canine pets. Symington will receive his puppy clones of Trakr for free.

BioArts International says it holds the sole, worldwide license for the cloning of dogs, cats and endangered species, and is partnered with Sooam Biotech Research Foundation of South Korea. Sooam was established by Hwang Woo-Suk, who led the team that produced the world’s first canine clone, Snuppy,  in 2005, but was fired the next year for falsifying research related to cloning human embryos.

“We received many very touching submissions to our contest, describing some truly amazing dogs,” says Lou Hawthorne, CEO of Bio Arts International. “But Trakr’s story blew us away. His many remarkable capabilities were proven beyond all doubt in our nation’s darkest hour – and we’re proud to have cloned him successfully.”

Trakr was credited with hundreds of arrests and recovered more than $1 million in stolen goods during his career as a police search-and-rescue dog. Symington, a Halifax, Nova Scotia police officer at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, arrived with Trakr at Ground Zero. According to Symington, Trakr located the last human survivor to be found in the rubble.

“Once in a lifetime, a dog comes along that not only captures the hearts of all he touches but also plays a private role in history,” Symington wrote in his winning essay.

Trakr was presented with an extraordinary service to humanity award by Dr. Jane Goodall, United Nations “Messenger of Peace.”

“They’re identical – down to the smallest detail,” Symington said when meeting  the Trakr clones on Sunday. “Few dogs are born with exceptional abilities – Trakr was one of those dogs. And if these puppies have the same attributes as Trakr, I plan on putting them in to search and rescue so they can help people the way Trakr did.”

In order to clone Trakr,  Hwang’s team replaced the genes in eggs from unrelated dogs with genes from Trakr, stimulated the resulting “couplets” to develop into embryos, then transferred the embryos to dogs who served as surrogate mothers. After normal pregnancies, they gave birth to puppies that are genetically identical to Trakr, the first of which was born December 8, 2008 and the last on April 4, 2009. All were born and weaned in Seoul, South Korea, and all are in excellent health, BioArts says.

“9-11 was a terrible shock for Korean people as well as Americans,” said Dr. Hwang by email from Seoul, Korea. “These five clones of Trakr, who saved a human life at Ground Zero, are a gift not just to Mr. Symington, but to America and the world.”

(Photo: Symington, Hawthorne and clones; courtesy of BioArts International)

 
It’s a familiar chain of events in many a city — a particular neighborhood, usually by virtue of its location, emerges as desirable. Young and affluent people move in. Real estate prices rise and, with them, taxes. The old neighborhood bars get upscaled. Mom and pop shops close down. Oldtimers start leaving. A Whole Foods opens. Then you step in dog poop.

The fancy word for it is gentrification — and while dogs are, for the most part, innocent bystanders (byrunners? bypoopers?) they often seem to surface as the issue around which gentrifications wars play out.

I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between a recent story out of Venice, California, appearing in the Santa Monica Daily Press, and our situation right here in South Baltimore.

The  story looked at a growing conflict between long-time black and Latino members of a Venice neighborhood and affluent newcomers and their dogs. Long-time residents are complaining about the presence of off-leash dogs in the park.

“When families in the neighborhood see the blatant disregard for the law and there is signage throughout the park, it sends a message that they’re above the law and privileged,” said Lydia Ponce, who serves on the Oakwood Park Advisory Board, “It sets up a cultural divide.”

Dog owners, meanwhile, say they are simply seeking a place for their dogs to run — an activity that, properly monitored, impinges on no one’s rights or space. “We’re law-abiding citizens and we don’t want to get tickets for exercising dogs in the morning,” said Dr. Douglas Stockel, who has lived in Venice for five years.

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