Police dogs are known heroes, but there’s a lot that goes into making them that way. Endless hours of training, time in the field, and bonding exercises with their human partners can be an arduous process.
That’s why scientists in China are getting ahead of the game. According to the Global Times, the Beijing-based Sinogene Biotechnology Company and the Yunnan Agricultural University – with support from the Ministry of Public Security – have successfully cloned a Kunming wolfdog known as the “ Sherlock Holmes of police dogs.” The result is a puppy they’ve named Kunxun, the first of many in a program created to cut down training time and costs for the dogs.
China’s first cloned police dog, 3-month-old Kunxun, has begun training after arriving at a police base in Kunming, Southwest China’s Yunnan Province earlier this month. pic.twitter.com/SYyDU1YEWB
— ShanghaiEye (@ShanghaiEye) March 20, 2019
Kunxun is a copy of Huahuangma, a sniffer dog who helped solve 12 murder cases and 20 other major investigations. Zhao Jianping, Sinogene’s deputy general manager, told the Global Times that Kunxun makes it possible for “volume production” of more dogs, which will offset the lengthy business of finding and training police dogs. The program will also help curb China’s shortage of police dogs – although it does come at a cost. According to The Daily Mail, Jianping predicts the cost of creating Kunxun is “several hundreds of thousands of yuan.”
According to Science and Technology Daily, Kunxun was born on December 19 and is currently three months old. On March 5, she was flown from Beijing to Kunmig to begin her training, which includes drug detection, crowd control, and searching for evidence. According to South China Morning Post, she will become a full-time police dog when she is about a year old.
We’re not sure what to make of cloned police dogs, but we can’t deny Kunxun is cute as hell. If this is the future, at least it will be adorable.
Images: Peter Isotalo/Wiki Commons