Chihuahua Puppies May Be Maryland's First Cloned Dogs
BEL AIR, Md. (WJZ) -- Five Chihuahua puppies have been cloned from a dog belonging to a Bel Air woman.
According to our media partners at The Baltimore Sun, Meesha Kauffman paid a Texas animal cloning company $50,000 to clone her dog Bruce Wayne. The pups were born in October and Kauffman kept four, while the fifth lives with her friend in Baltimore.
"I was expecting one puppy or maybe two," Kauffman told The Sun. "When I heard that five puppies were born, I thought, 'Wow, I hit the jackpot."
The cloning company, ViaGen, is the only animal cloning company in the U.S. that clones pets as well as livestock, according to it's Client Service Manager, Melain Rodriguez. ViaGen's parent company, Intrexon Corp. is based in Germantown, Md.
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Rodriguez says the company has cloned more than 100 pets, with more than half being dogs. He also says ViaGen previously cloned cats that reside in Maryland, but these are the first cloned dogs in the state.
In February, singer Barbara Streisand revealed she'd had her 14-year-old dog cloned. Rodriguez credits that reveal for an uptick in interest in the practice.
Keeping with the superhero theme, 35-year-old Kauffman has named her new pups Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Wade Wilson and Tony Stark. She says they all have different personalities and are not robotic copies of Bruce Wayne.
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