Bits for Pets Blog

A Californian dog-lover has agreed to pay $150,000 to have her dead pit bull recreated in the world’s first commercial pet cloning project.

The dog, named Booger, died a year and a half ago but his owner kept part of his ear in cold storage and South Korean scientists will now attempt to create an exact replica of the pet.

RNL Bio, based in Seoul, said it is already working on the order. The work will be carried out by a team of Seoul National University (SNU) scientists led by professor Lee Byeong-chun, a key member of disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk’s research team.

Most of Hwang’s well publicised breakthroughs in cloning human stem cells were discovered to be fake last year. But the SNU team was successful in creating the world’s first dog clone, an Afghan hound named “Snuppy”.

Bernann McKunney, the American who really misses her dead dog, is thought to have become especially attached to it after the pit bull saved her life when another dog attacked her.

Specific breeds of pit bull are banned or restricted in several countries including the UK, New Zealand and Canada.

Cho Seong-Ryul, RNL’s marketing director, said the company’s success rate for producing dogs by cloning was high with around one out of every four surrogate mother dogs producing cloned puppies.

Cells have been extracted from Booger’s ear tissue and inserted into ova which were then implanted into eight bitches.

Since Lee and Hwang cloned Snuppy no other scientists have succeeded in creating cloned dogs.

“This will mark the first time that a dog is being cloned in a commercial contract,” Cho said. “The cost for cloning a dog may come down to less than $50,000 as cloning is becoming an industry.”

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The Russian space agency has blasted 10 gerbils into space for a 12-day mission to test the possible effects on humans of a flight to Mars.

The small mammals, similar to mice and rats, are being kept in special cages with a supply of nuts and cereals.

Day and night will be simulated and special machines will clean their excrement in the weightless conditions.

The gerbils may find space preferable to returning to Earth - several are to be dissected upon their return.

The furry rodents lifted off from the Russian-run Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan on Friday in a Soyuz rocket.

Gerbils are probably more suited than most rodents for space flight because they conserve body fluids by producing a minimum of waste.

The 10 are all sand rodents, praised as “a very interesting object for research” because they “can live for more than a month without using liquids,” said Anatoly Grogoryev of the Russian Academy of Science.

“This will enable scientists to determine salt exchange mechanisms in zero gravity conditions.”

Gerbils, as many pet owners have discovered, are gregarious and active in daylight, which makes them easy to observe.

The 10 gerbils will be filmed during their space flight.

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A Saudi man’s attempt to smuggle live reptiles out of Egypt in his hand luggage has been foiled by horrified security officers at Cairo airport.

Snakes, chameleons and baby crocodiles were found in the 22-year-old’s bags as he tried to board a Saudi-bound flight.

Police had become suspicious when X-ray machines at the departure gate gave odd readings. Among the reptiles they found was a cobra, squirming to escape.

The animals were confiscated and turned over to Cairo Zoo.

Brief panic

The passenger, who said he was unaware that transporting live reptiles was illegal in Egypt, was later allowed to return to Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

He had claimed the animals were needed for scientific research.

Witnesses told Egyptian state news agency Mena how the discovery triggered a brief panic among security personnel at the airport.

Mena reported that the haul included about 250 baby crocodiles.

“This is the largest smuggling attempt of Nile crocodiles in the whole of aviation history,” the agency quoted airport vet Yusef Mamduh as saying.

In May, another Saudi national was caught carrying 700 live snakes in his hand luggage at the Cairo airport.

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A man has been questioned by police at LaGuardia airport in New York after smuggling a monkey onto a flight from Florida by hiding it under his hat.

Passengers spotted the animal when it climbed out and perched on the man’s ponytail, Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell told reporters.

Ms Russell said the monkey - a marmoset - spent the remainder of the flight in the man’s seat and was well-behaved.

It is unclear whether the unnamed man will face any criminal charges.

The man’s journey originated in Lima, Peru. Ms Russell said it was not known how the man avoided detection there, and during a several-hour stopover in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

When passengers noticed the fist-sized primate on the flight, they asked the man “if he knew he had a monkey on him”, Ms Russell said.

New York animal control officials said the monkey appeared to be healthy, the Associated Press news agency reported.

It said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was planning to quarantine the animal for a month.

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His eldest son Amjad Khan, 21, said his father had been performing at a show in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday when he was bitten by a King Cobra.

Ali Khan, who regularly performs with his beloved snakes for charity and for a living, died at 1am yesterday at Kuala Lumpur Hospital where he had been recuperating.

Amjad Khan related that when his father contacted him on Tuesday to tell him he had been bitten, the family had not been too worried.

“He had been bitten by snakes many times before, including three times by King Cobras. The first King Cobra bit him in Taiping when he was 21.

“So we didn’t think anything would happen. I was just relaks saja (calm),” said Amjad Khan at their flat in Kampung Boyan here yesterday.

On Thursday night, his condition took a turn for the worse. Family members here received a call from Amjad Khan’s uncle to go to the hospital.

Well known for his daring feats with cobras, Ali Khan had also made it into the 1997 Guinness Book of World Records, living in a glass enclosure filled with more than 5,000 scorpions for 21 days. He set another record by living with 400 snakes for 40 days.

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Ageing cats can develop a feline form of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study.

A team from the Universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Bristol and California have identified a key protein, which can build up in the nerve cells of a cat’s brain and cause mental deterioration.

Alzheimer’s disease in humans is thought to be the product of the protein ‘tangling’ inside the nerve cells, inhibiting messages processed by the brain.

The scientists believe that this protein is present in cats too, and is proof that they can develop this kind of disease.

By carrying out post-mortem examinations of cats that succumbed to the disease naturally, the team are now able to investigate how the condition develops in felines. This may eventually help scientists to come up with possible treatments.

Scientists have suspected for a long time that cats could suffer from dementia in their old age, and previous research has already revealed the thick, gritty plaques on the outside of elderly cats’ brain cells which are similar to those found in humans.

But, by pinpointing this second key marker, the Edinburgh-led team says we can be sure that cats can suffer from a feline form of Alzheimer’s.

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George Clooney’s beloved potbellied pig Max has died.

The pet passed away at the ‘Syriana’ actor’s Hollywood home from old age. He was suffering from arthritis and partial blindness.

Clooney told the USA Today newspaper: “He was as old a pig as the vets had ever seen. I was really surprised when he went. I’m really upset, he’s been a big part of my life.”

The 45-year-old actor had Max for 18 years, and often spoke of his affection for his pet hog, referring to him as “Max, the star”. He even shared his bed with the pig.

Max is not the only animal friend Clooney has lost this year.

He explained: “It has been a bad year for my pets. I had a bulldog that died this year, too. It’s strange how animals become a bit part of your family. They really become a big issue with you.”

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An investigation is under way after a major airport security blunder allowed a woman to travel 2,800 miles to Britain with a cat in her hand luggage.

The woman, who has not been named, travelled on two planes on her journey from Iran to Newcastle via Amsterdam.

The kitten was only discovered at the end of her journey by customs officials at Newcastle Airport, who asked to look inside the box she was carrying. The cat, named Tiger, is now in quarantine where it will remain for the next six months.

The incident comes just weeks after security at UK airports was stepped up - including the impostion of strict rules on hand luggage - following an alleged terror plot to blow up passenger jets in mid-air. A major probe is now under way as to how the woman managed to travel with the cat without airport staff spotting it.

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Houdini the Burmese python gave his owner a shock after swallowing a queen-size electric blanket, including the electrical cord and control box.

X-rays showed the blanket’s wires running through 8ft of the python’s 12ft (3.6m) body and emergency surgery was needed to remove them.

Owner Karl Beznoska, of Ketchum in Idaho, US, believes the blanket become entangled in Houdini’s rabbit dinner.

Vets say it would have taken the python six hours to swallow the blanket.

They believe 18-year-old Houdini would have died had they not performed the two-hour operation.

The vet who carried out the surgery, Karsten Fostvedt, said the “prognosis is great”. Houdini is now recovering.

Neither Mr Fostvedt nor his colleague at Ketchum’s St Francis Pet Clinic had operated on a snake before and had to telephone two specialists for advice after Houdini was brought in.

Mr Beznoska told the Idaho Mountain Express newspaper that he noticed Houdini was not looking well on Monday morning - and the blanket kept in his cage for warmth had disappeared.

He said the blanket must have got caught up in Houdini’s rabbit dinner on Sunday, and the python continued to gulp down the blanket even after his food had gone.

“This is something I’ve never heard of or seen before,” he said.

Mr Beznoska has had Houdini for 16 years and calls him “a good boy” and “very mellow and very friendly”.

The 60lb (27kg) python is apparently something of a local celebrity, and a popular visitor to schools and libraries.

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Ten cats in search of owners will spend the next 10 days in a New York store window, their every move caught on camera for a reality TV show on which they will compete for best sleeper and mouse-catcher.

The show is the creation of a petfood company and will be shown on cable channel Animal Planet, as well as on the Web site www.MeowMixHouse.com where viewers will be asked to vote off one feline contestant each day.

The cats, chosen from shelters around the country, will compete for loudest purr, most prolific sleeper and who can catch the most toy mice. Kitties who get the boot will be adopted into permanent homes.

Meow Mix, owned by Del Monte Foods Company, hopes the show will promote cat adoption — as well as their products, which will be the only thing on the menu.

Passerby taking a gander though a specially rented storefront on Madison Avenue in midtown Manhattan can watch the cats lazing about a luxuriously outfitted cat-sized house that includes scaled-down sofas, beds, a fish tank (with fake fish), kitchen and a porch, all put together by an interior designer.

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