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Couple Spends $150K to Clone Dog
by: WBBH-TV
A Florida couple welcomed a cloned copy of their deceased dog into their home this week.
Edgar and Nina Otto say they had no idea how their four-legged clone would react to them.
After waiting several months, the yellow Labrador puppy bounded off an airplane at Miami International Airport, right into their arms. Lancelot Encore is his name, or Lancy for short.
The puppy Lancy looks and acts just like Lancelot, their first Lab, who died a year ago, say the Ottos. That's not surprising, because Lancy is Lancelot's clone.
"We just got him because we wanted to have Lancelot more than just the 11 years," Nina Otto said.
The Ottos submitted the winning bid of $155,000 at an auction with a San Francisco biotech company that had Lancelot in South Korea.
"Did I ever think that I was going to spend $150K on a dog? No," Edgar Otto said, adding, "This is a really sweet dog, and ... we're very happy that we did it."
Edgar Otto is the son of Edward Otto, a co-founder of NASCAR. So money was really not an issue for this family.
They got the idea five years ago and had a sample of Lancelot's DNA extracted and banked when they heard that cloning was possible.
So far, the Ottos say Lancy is eerily similar to Lancelot. They say Lancy walks just like Lancelot and crosses his paws like him, too.
"I only was hoping to get the essence of Lancelot back," Nina said. "I know I've gotten that. Anything else is icing on the cake."
But is it the same dog?
"It's as close as you can get," Edgar said.
The Ottos have nine other dogs, as well as cats, birds and sheep, all living on a spectacular 12-acre spread in Boca Raton, Florida.
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