Top Chinese police dog cloned to cut training times, state media reports
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A police dog in China has been cloned and the 3-month-old clone has begun intensive training, according to state-owned media. (Stock image) (iStock)
The “Sherlock Holmes” of police dogs in China has been cloned in the hopes of cutting down on training times and costs, according to state media.
The 3-month-old pup, Kunxun, has already started training, the Global Times reported Wednesday.
Sinogene Biotechnology Company in Beijing and Yunnan Agricultural University reportedly cloned Kunxun with backing from China’s Ministry of Public Security.
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The pup was cloned from a 7-year-old sniffer dog named Huahuangma, who was recognized in 2016 by China’s Ministry of Public Security for her contributions to murder investigations, the Global Times reported.
The goal of the project is to reduce training times for police dogs, though the cost of making clones is still an obstacle, Sinogene’s deputy general manager told the outlet. He did not say how much cloning costs.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Training for police dogs in China usually takes about five years and costs as much as 500,000 Chinese Yuan, or about $74,687.
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Kunxun is expected to become a police dog when it is 10 months old, after extensive training in drug detection, crowd control and searching for evidence, China Daily reported.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Cloning police dogs is at an experimental phase. It's hoped that we can mass produce cloned good-performing police dogs as techniques mature in the next 10 years," Wan Jiusheng, a senior researcher at Kunming Police Dog base, where Kunxun is training, told China Daily.