L.A. businessman plans to have his dogs cloned

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An L.A.-based businessman is well on his way to having his two beloved pet dogs cloned.

Peter Onruang told our sister station KTLA that his terrier mix, Wolfie, had been his best friend before her death at age 15 in 2009. Before Wolfie’s demise, Onruang took measures to preserve her genetic material and that of her sister Bubble in the hope that he could have them cloned at some point in the future.

First, Onruang had to raise the money to have the expensive cloning procedure performed on Wolfie and Bubble. He founded a company, Hollywood Paintball, with the express purpose of raising the money -- to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars.

A few years later, Onruang says a South Korean company has been paid for the cloning procedure, and he now awaits the births of Wolfie and Bubble clones. (He plans to call the puppies Wolfie and Bubble, if you’re wondering.)

Of course, pet-cloning isn’t for everyone -- beyond the expense, there’s the not-insignificant detail that the cloned dog isn’t the original, no matter how much its owner may want it to be. Plus, as Unleashed readers well know, there are untold thousands of non-cloned dogs in need of homes, and they don’t cost a hundred grand!

Onruang is undeterred by all that, though -- he just wants the closest thing possible to his original dogs, and KTLA reports that he expects to have a clone (or clones) of Wolfie later this year. He also maintains a website through which he dispenses advice about the dog-cloning process.

RELATED ANIMAL CLONING NEWS:
• Cloned sniffer dogs on the job at South Korea customs agency
• South Korean scientists clone four beagle puppies that glow under ultraviolet light

-- Lindsay Barnett