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When Edgar and Nina Otto met their new puppy, Lancey, for the first time at a crowded airport, he ran straight to them, as if he had met them before.
This isn’t just a case of fate bringing together pet and owner. It’s a case of science bringing a pet back to life — kind of.
The Ottos are featured on the TLC special “I Cloned My Pet.” When their yellow Lab, Sir Lancelot, died three years ago of cancer, they froze his remains. At that time, only cats and smaller animals were being cloned, but they hoped that the technology would catch up, and they would be able to clone Sir Lancelot.
Eight months later, a biotech company offered the world’s first pet cloning via auction. For the staggering price of $155,000 (and they were prepared to go even higher), the Ottos were able to bring Sir Lancelot’s frozen DNA to life in the form of a clone named Lancey.
“We had the money to do it,” Nina told The Post. “We could have bought a boat; we’re in Florida. We could afford a plane. That’s not what we wanted. We really, really love animals.”
The Ottos, multimillionaires thanks to Edgar’s father being a NASCAR founder and other successful business ventures of their own, say they went into the process with realistic expectations; they weren’t expecting to get a replica of their beloved late pet.
“We are probably going to be thought of as kooks,” Edgar said. “We did not clone this dog with any preconceived ideas that we’re going to have the same dog back. We were very objective about it. But the clone does have the same personality. As far as we’re concerned, if it’s not the same dog, it’s damn close.”
The Ottos say the two dogs are nearly identical in appearance.
“They look almost exactly the same. I don’t know if Lancelot was sitting next to Lancey if I could tell them apart,” Nina said.
And apparently their other pets — five cats and seven other dogs — were fooled, too. After being created in a lab in Korea, the clone was brought to the home where Sir Lancelot lived.
“He said hello to everybody — ‘everybody’ is our seven other dogs — and nobody said anything. I mean, dogs growl at puppies, they don’t like somebody strange in their house. But he wasn’t strange to them.”
TLC aired its first special about pet cloning earlier this year. The Ottos’ story, along with two other families’ experiences with pet cloning, airs Monday night at 10.