Toppy
Seven cloned Labrador Retriever dogs (born 2007)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Toppy is the name given to seven cloned[1] Labrador Retriever dogs, born in late 2007 to three surrogate mothers.[2] They were the world's first cloned working dogs, and were used by the Korea Customs Service.
Each Toppy is a clone of a successful sniffer dog in Canada.[3] The Toppy dogs needed 16 months of training to qualify to work for the South Korean Customs Service.[3] Only 10-15% of dogs are genetically predisposed to being effective detection dogs.[4]
The project cost ₩300 million (about US$240,000), and was funded by the Government of South Korea;[2] it was led by Lee Byeong-chun, a former aide to Hwang Woo-suk, who fell from grace after his stem cell research turned out to be fabricated.[4]
