Russian clone dogs ‘genetically modified’ by Putin to sniff out drugs and explosives are SCRAPPED after tests prove they’re completely useless
The Belgian Malinois puppies are worth £80,000 each and were created in a South Korean lab
DESIGNER dogs cloned in a laboratory to sniff out explosives and drugs have flunked their basic police handling tests in Russia, it was revealed today.
Vladimir Putin's law enforcement put the animals through their paces after they were gifted by a South Korean cloning expert who is also seeking to bring the extinct woolly mammoth back to life using genetic material preserved in the Siberian permafrost.
The Belgian Malinois puppies, each valued at $100,000, were bred from "the best sniffer dogs" by international cloning expert Dr Hwang Woo Suk.
But the animals seem incapable of performing basic tasks required by dogs working for the police or security services, and have been rejected for this role, say law enforcement chiefs.
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The cloned dogs are also not happy in the cold Siberian winter, and their fate is now unclear.
Two of three dogs gifted by the cloning guru were given the Russian police test in Yakutsk, capital of the Sakha Republic, Russia's largest region.
It involved 13 basic tasks seen as essential for service animals.
Aleksey Kolmogorov, deputy head of the canine service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said: "One of them failed to perform any task.
"It immediately lay down because of the cold. The second dog was slightly better, but completed only 50 per cent of tasks.
"They are not adapted to our harsh conditions, they are smooth coated, and cannot withstand frost."
The second dog did not pass sufficient elements to be permitted to retake the test, reported .
Spokesperson for the ministry, Maria Mironova, confirmed: "The cloned dog did not pass the control test of our canine service."
The dogs arrived in Yakutsk in November, and were unveiled at the city's Mammoth Museum, which works closely with the cloning guru and is at the forefront of efforts to bring the woolly mammoth back to life using DNA frozen for thousands of years in the permafrost.
Director Semyon Grigoryev said at the time: "These dogs have been recreated from the cells of the best Korean sniffer dogs, inheriting their unique abilities.
"They will be the first cloned service dogs in Russia."
They are among 500 cloned puppies from the Sooam Biotech laboratories in Seoul, the world's first animal cloning centre.
"These dogs are very young, in Korea they went though a basic training, so handlers here will decide what best to choose for them depending on their abilities and talents," said Dr Grigoryev.
He also warned that it may take the dogs sometime to understand instructions in Russian.
"The dogs' first task will be language retraining," he said. "So far, they understand orders in Korean but experts say they will soon pick up their new language."
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