EXCLUSIVE: 'I am not a crazy dog lady, I just wanted him to live on.' How mother-of-four shelled out $50K to clone her beloved toy poodle resulting in three identical puppies - and is going to DUPLICATE her dog's CLONES too
- Amy Vangemert said she had grown reliant on her dog Buhner as her four sons Robert, 30, Taylor, 29, Dyllan, 26, and Austin, 23, grew up and left home
- The 55-year-old was so attached to the pooch that the thought of the toy poodle passing away as he grew older made her cry every day
- But when she started searching for other dogs to replace Buhner, she couldn't stop noticing how different they were from him
- So she and her husband John, 55, decided to contact the same Texas company - ViaGen Pets - that cloned Barbra Streisand's pooch in 2017
- Just six months later, she was presented with three identical puppies, Buhner Junior (BJ), Baxter and Ditto, now one
- She decided to give away Baxtar to Dr Shawn Walker, the VP of science and technology at ViaGen Pets, who had fallen in love with the adorable pooches
- Amy denied that she was a 'crazy dog lady', but admitted to DailyMail.com that she plans on cloning BJ and Ditto in around seven years
- She said: 'I couldn't be happier. It's the best decision I have ever made. I would clone over and over again. I want these puppies, there's nothing like them'
An empty-nester mother who shelled out $50K to clone her toy poodle, resulting in three identical puppies has told DailyMail.com she is so pleased with the pooches that she is going duplicate her dog's clones in a few years.
Amy Vangemert said she had increasingly grown reliant on her dog Buhner as her four sons Robert, 30, Taylor, 29, Dyllan, 26, and Austin, 23, grew up and left home.
The 55-year-old was so attached that the thought of him passing away as he grew older made her cry every day, prompting her to search for another dog - but she couldn't stop noticing how different they were from Buhner.
So she and her husband John, 55, who she owns a construction company with in Seattle, decided to contact the same Texas company that cloned superstar Barbra Streisand's pooch in 2017.
Just six months later, she was presented with three identical puppies, Buhner Junior (BJ), Baxter and Ditto, now one.
Amy denied that she was a 'crazy dog lady', but admitted to DailyMail.com that she plans on cloning BJ and Ditto in a few years time.
Amy Vangemert shelled out $50K to clone her toy poodle Buhner, resulting in three identical puppies has told DailyMail.com she is so pleased with the pooches that she is going duplicate her dog's clones when they turn eight
So she and her husband John, 55, who she owns a construction company with in Seattle, decided to clone Buhner. 2017. Just six months later, she was presented with three identical puppies, Buhner Junior (BJ), Baxter and Ditto, now one. They ended up giving Baxter to their doctor, who fell in love with the puppy
Amy said to DailyMail.com: 'It's the best decision I've ever made. They are my joy in life. It was worth every penny.
'I couldn't be happier. It's the best decision I have ever made. I would clone over and over again. I want these puppies, there's nothing like them.'
Amy explained she fell in love with 13-year-old Buhner the moment she met him in 2005, saying: 'I am super attached to him. I don't think I've had a better friend. I love his loyalty and his sweet, gentle nature.
'I started getting emotional after he turned ten. I felt like I could never say goodbye to him. I really didn't think I could live without him.
'My husband worried about me because I was crying every day. If Buhner whimpered, I would be terrified that he was sick.'
Amy, who also has a rescue dog, Bella, a six-year-old black poodle, began looking for other dogs but couldn't stop noticing how different they were from Buhner.
'I searched for breeders and for anyway possible to find a dog that I would be able to love like Buhner,' she said. 'But every time I thought: 'Oh no, it's not Buhner.
'I wished I had never got Buhner fixed when he was puppy because I didn't have the opportunity to breed him. I wanted a piece of him to live on.'
Amy first considered cloning after she watched a segment about the practice on news program Sixty Minutes five years ago.
She said: 'I thought I could never do it but I started doing research.
'I read about a man who cloned his dog in Korea and that there was somewhere in the US who were looking into cloning family pets.
'I talked to my husband about it and we both decided that we didn't want to live without a part of Buhner.'
Amy is so thrilled with BJ and Ditto that she plans on cloning again in a few years. 'I will definitely do it again,' she said. I'm going to wait until they are around eight years old'
Dr Shawn Walker, the vice president of science and technology at ViaGen Pets, flew to Washington state to bring Amy her puppies and confessed that he had fallen in love with the adorable pooches. Amy decided to give him Baxter
She contacted Texas cloning company ViaGen Pets in August 2017.
ViaGen Pets has been cloning horses and livestock for 17 years, three and a half years ago they started cloning cats and dogs. Cloning a dog costs $50,000 while a cat costs $25,000.
'I wrote them a check and just decided to do it,' said Amy. 'They began the process immediately.
'I took Buhner to have his teeth cleaned and the vet did the biopsy.'
To clone a pet, ViaGen requires at least two skin samples to collect the DNA. Most skin samples are taken from the belly or the inside of a pet's leg.
These samples are then packed in ice and sent to a laboratory where they are placed in an incubator and cells start to grow.
Within two to four weeks, there are millions of cells. The cells are harvested and placed in vials which are frozen in liquid nitrogen tanks.
Melain Rodriguez, client service manager at ViaGen Pets, said: 'They can be maintained in this frozen state forever.
'We have cells from 17 years ago which are still stored.
'Most of our clients are just choosing to store their pet cells right now because the cloning process is so expensive.'
This genetic preservation costs $1,600 with an annual $150 fee for storage.
In the next step of cloning, a donor egg is taken from a donor animal.
The nucleus of the egg is removed so there is no DNA and it is replaced with one of the millions of cells that have been grown in the laboratory.
To clone a pet, ViaGen requires at least two skin samples to collect the DNA. Most skin samples are taken from the belly or the inside of a pet's leg. Pictured: Buhner at the vet having a biopsy
Amy explained she fell in love with 13-year-old Buhner the moment she met him in 2005, saying: 'I am super attached to him. I don't think I've had a better friend. I love his loyalty and his sweet, gentle nature.' Pictured: Buhner as a puppy
Amy (pictured with her husband) told DailyMail.com: 'It's the best decision I've ever made. They are my joy in life. It was worth every penny. It's the best decision I have ever made. I would clone over and over again. I want these puppies, there's nothing like them'
Rodriguez said: 'The egg and the cell are fused together in our patented cloning process.
'Essentially the egg is tricked into thinking it's been fertilised by a sperm.'
The embryo is implanted into a surrogate animal who gives birth to puppies genetically identical to the original dog.
Baxter, Ditto and Buhner Junior were born on January 31, 2017.
Amy did not meet the cloned puppies until April as they had to stay with the surrogate for eight weeks.
Dr Shawn Walker, the vice president of science and technology at ViaGen Pets, flew to Washington state to bring Amy her puppies and confessed that he had fallen in love with the adorable pooches.
Amy decided to give him Baxter.
She said: 'It was the longest few months of my life waiting for these puppies.
'As my husband and I pulled up, my heart was pounding.
'Dr Walker fell in love with them so I ended up giving him Baxter. I already had Buhner and my rescue dog Bella so I knew that three more in the mix was too many.
'I never would have let him go if I didn't think Dr Walker would look after him perfectly.'
Buhner Junior, known as BJ, leaped into Amy's arms and she instantly fell in love.
While the puppies looked the spitting image of Buhner, she soon noticed that they had their own personalities.
Share this article
Baxter, Ditto and Buhner Junior were born on January 31, 2017. Amy did not meet the cloned puppies until April as they had to stay with the surrogate for eight weeks. Pictured: The cloned newborn puppies
Amy has faced criticism for her decision to clone Buhner but she insisted she is not a 'crazy dog lady'. She said: 'A couple of acquaintances said I was wrong and it was inhumane and there were so many dogs out there that need to be adopted.' Pictured: Buhner with biological mother Juliet
'They are identical to Buhner,' she said. Buhner had a lazy eye and both puppies have the same lazy eye.
'They are basically identical triplets. But there are personality differences.
'Ditto is more like Buhner, a little lazier and a frantic licker. But BJ has a lot more energy and doesn't lick at all.
'If you are cloning to replicate, you should never do it. If you are cloning to have a little piece of the one you love go on in life then I think it is perfect.'
Amy is so thrilled with BJ and Ditto that she plans on cloning again in a few years.
'I will definitely do it again,' she said. I'm going to wait until they are around eight years old.'
Amy has faced criticism for her decision to clone Buhner but she insisted she is not a 'crazy dog lady'.
She said: 'I have had some serious backlash from people.
'A couple of acquaintances said I was wrong and it was inhumane and there were so many dogs out there that need to be adopted.
'But that's like telling a mother that she shouldn't have her own child when there are children out there who need parents. I already have a rescue dog.
'I am not a crazy dog lady, I just wanted a piece of Buhner to live on.
'I had other family members who were ecstatic and envious and relished every moment of the process with me.'
Although ViaGen Pets will not release exact figures of how many animals they have cloned, Rodriguez said the company clone around 50 pets every year.
She added: 'That number is growing. More and more people are interested in cloning.'
WHAT IS CLONING AND COULD WE ONE DAY CLONE HUMANS?
What is cloning?
Cloning describes several different processes that can be used to produce genetically identical copies of a plant or animal.
In its most basic form, cloning works by taking an organism's DNA and copying it to another place.
There are three different types of artificial cloning: Gene cloning, reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning.
Gene cloning creates copies of genes or parts of DNA. Reproductive cloning creates copies of whole animals.
Therapeutic cloning produces embryonic stem cells for tests aimed at creating tissues to replace injured or diseased tissues.
To create somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) clones, scientists take DNA (red circle) from tissue and insert it into egg cells (yellow) with their DNA (green) removed. The scientists then switch on or off certain genes to help the cells replicate (right)
Dolly the Sheep was cloned in 1996 using a reproductive cloning process known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).
This takes a somatic cell, such as a skin cell, and moves its DNA to an egg cell with its nucleus removed.
Another more recent method of cloning uses Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC).
iPSCs are skin or blood cells that have been reprogrammed back into an embryonic-like state.
This allows scientists to design them into any type of cell needed.
Could we ever clone a human?
Currently there is no scientific evidence that human embryos can be cloned.
In 1998, South Korean scientists claimed to have successfully cloned a human embryo, but said the experiment was interrupted when the clone was just a group of four cells.
In 2002, Clonaid, part of a religious group that believes humans were created by extraterrestrials, held a news conference to announce the birth of what it claimed to be the first cloned human, a girl named Eve.
This was widely dismissed as a publicity stunt.
In 2004, a group led by Woo-Suk Hwang of Seoul National University in South Korea published a paper in the journal Science in which it claimed to have created a cloned human embryo in a test tube.
Gene cloning creates copies of genes or parts of DNA. Reproductive cloning creates copies of whole animals (stock image)
In 2006 that paper was retracted.
According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, from a technical perspective cloning humans is extremley difficult.
'One reason is that two proteins essential to cell division, known as spindle proteins, are located very close to the chromosomes in primate eggs,' it writes.
'Consequently, removal of the egg's nucleus to make room for the donor nucleus also removes the spindle proteins, interfering with cell division.'
The group explains that in other mammals, such as cats, rabbits and mice, the two spindle proteins are spread throughout the egg.
