How to Clone

Genetic Savings & Clone has its roots in the Missyplicity Project, which began as an effort to clone a beloved dog named Missy. In 1997, news that Dolly the sheep had been cloned inspired Arizona entrepreneur John Sperling to find out whether Missy could also be cloned. Missy had an exceptional genetic endowment but, because she was a spayed mutt of unknown parentage, it was otherwise impossible to continue her "breed."

When in the following year Dr. Sperling launched a multi-million-dollar project to have Missy cloned, news spread quickly. Calls and emails poured in from people around the world who wanted to gene bank and clone their own remarkable pets. Dr. Sperling and other members of the Missyplicity Project founded Genetic Savings & Clone in February 2000 in response to this demand.

Missy died at age 15 in 2002 before efforts to clone her had succeeded. Thanks to gene banking technology, her DNA remains available for use in cloning. We remain confident that our ongoing research efforts will result in the birth of her clone.

The following anecdotes, written by Missy's human "mom" Joan, and accompanying photographs illustrate some of the features that made Missy such a special dog.

How Missy Found a Home

Before Missy there was Liebe, a shepherd-coyote mix (a coydog) female who was much loved by the family. She was beautiful but not friendly to anyone outside the family. She was difficult to train, disobedient, and could get out of any enclosure or collar (we sometimes called her "Houdini Coyote"). When she was very old (15) her back legs pained her and she began to get strange viruses, which caused her to walk in circles.

We decided to try to find another dog to cheer her and to make her life more interesting, whether or not she approved.

At the pound, we met a stray named Missy. She was four months old, frisky, and oh so beautiful. She was the favorite of all the attendants and like Liebe, who also came from the pound, was clearly determined to get out of that place. Her eyes stared at me and I couldn't look away. She poked her nose through the fence, whined, got her paw through an opening, and when I took her paw in my hand she licked it. Then she whirled in a circle, displayed her full white tail, and tried again to get at me.

But I wasn't going to hurry. I didn't want another dog whose bite (in Liebe's first year) would bring blood. I wanted to know if she had a high ear-shattering bark (which I don't like), and if she could howl (which I do like). How was I going to get her to bark or howl? I began talking to her and she sat there sloppily, one leg loose, cocking her head, left, right, and I noticed that one erect ear had a dip, which I found somehow charming. I offered a howl to her and she raised her nose and howled at the roof. I barked at her and she barked right back, a low rich-toned, businesslike bark. I whined, she whined.

I asked the attendant to let her out...to the enclosure outside where I could play with her. She ran out to the yard and when I sat down on the bench, she was instantly up beside me, leaning against me, gazing at my face. I offered her a ball and she pushed it out of my hand, then took half my hand into her mouth. So gently. She had what the attendant called "a soft mouth." I threw the ball and she brought it back but wouldn't release it. I put my arms around her and buried my face in her brown-black-white fur. She smelled so good.

I can't believe now that I left her there one more night, because I wanted to think — to think what? The next day, I was at the pound half an hour before opening time. As I entered, an attendant said, "She's waiting for you." When I arrived at her cage, she ran in circles, then pressed her nose through again. When released, she ran to the exit door, then back to me, then to the door again. The attendant added, "We call her Missy because...well, just because." At the parking lot, she jumped into the back seat, then squeezed into the front. I said, "Get in back, Missy," and gestured with my hand. She obeyed, but maneuvered her head near my shoulder as I drove us home.

Missy Rescues the Old Dog

At her new home, Missy streaked out of the car, around the corner, straight to Liebe who was lying on a mat in the courtyard. I held my breath. Missy tried a bid to play, paws together, front body level with Liebe's nose, eyes on the older dog, tail wagging. Missy barked a few times. Liebe struggled to rise. Missy, I'm certain, understood the frailty. She quit the game, and instead began to lick Liebe's face, her ears, her back, then lay down close enough to continue her licking.

In the next few weeks, Liebe gathered strength enough to get up and go out to the grass area where she and Missy would bark at each other, trying to play, with Missy circling and feinting, teasing. This happened several times a day, and when Missy and I would take a walk, Liebe would bring up the rear, her pace very slow but determined. When Liebe would get too far behind I'd go to her, pet her, and Missy would lick. One day I said to Missy, "Missy, go back to Liebe, go help her!" She cocked her hear, staring at me, then bounded back to Liebe, pranced around her and licked her face. Liebe picked up speed.

When we walked downhill, Missy sometimes got so excited, went so fast, that she somersaulted head over paws, with tail a whir of white, landing on her feet and kept on running.

Then came the stormy night I fell into deep and permanent love with Missy. Liebe always wanted to stay outside at night - even on this particular night, moonless with a heavy rain and a stiff wind. But she was on antibiotics and I decided she had to come inside. I stood in the doorway but couldn't see her anywhere. I called and called, but no answer. The house was surrounded by heavy brush and steep slopes. I imagined her caught somewhere, too weak to get loose and come home. I imagined her dying in the cold rain, no one there to comfort her. I put on rain gear and with a flashlight, Missy and I went out to hunt for her. I assumed Liebe would not have gone into the really thick brush, where she only went when chasing rabbits - something she hadn't done in over a year.

Finally, desperate, I shouted at Missy,"Dammit Missy! Go find Liebe! Go find her, dumb dog!" A few minutes later, Missy disappeared up the dark hill slope, deep in the brush, then came bounding back to me, stared at me, barked at me. Then off she went again, into the brush. Oh hell, I thought, what else is there to do but follow her? And there in a heap was a very wet Liebe, curled into a ball, sturdy branches locking her into place. I struggled to release her, picked up her sopping 40 pounds, and staggered down the slope. Both dogs came inside that night, got a towel rubdown, and slept curled around each other, in front of the kerosene heater.

A Breed Apart

Every day, we heard the same comments about Missy: She's so beautiful! Where did you get her? Where can I find one like her? And especially: what breed is she? Everyone asked and seemed ready to go immediately to get one just like her, but what exactly was she?

Who knows? Missy was the dog equivalent of a Rorschach Test: people saw the breed or blend they wanted to see. Some claimed she was part wolf; others that she was part Husky. Some were convinced she was largely Border Collie; still others saw a bit of coyote in her. With nothing conclusive to go on visually, we tried to narrow the possibilities by studying her behavior.

One of Missy's distinctive behaviors, suggesting a Border Collie, was her tendency to corral the herd, whatever the herd may have been. One day a friend and I were walking down the country road past the organic farm near our house. At the end of the road is an enclosure with cattle. Cattle can't get out but a determined dog can get in. We watched as Missy raced (you should have seen this dog run, clocked by my son at 35 miles per hour) back and forth from side to side silently, forcing ten cows into the far corner of the field. We could only see their rear ends. Mission accomplished, Missy bounded back to us. Then came a big pickup truck down the road with the dour overseer of the farm in his ten-gallon hat. He stopped, got out carrying a gun. He said, "The next time I see that damn dog doing that to my cattle I'm gonna shoot her. They don't give good milk when she scares them like that. I'm telling you!"

We put her promptly onto a leash and reprimanded her as well. She never again corralled cows. The guy with the gun moved away and the farm people liked Missy, though they wished she didn't prefer to walk through the farm rather than around it. She proceeded to corral people instead of cows. She wanted everyone to stay together. If one of her family wanted to stay home and another wanted to go for a walk, she posed her indecision by standing in the driveway for a very long time. If she decided to go with the walker, she was likely to change her mind halfway and go back to the one left behind.

Whether or not Missy was part coyote, she had a special connection with them. Out where we live, the coyotes bark and howl every night. Missy always howled with them. She did not bark in answer to the barks of dogs across the valley. Several times she encountered coyotes on the country road. Her response to them was, fortunately, cautious. She did not chase, she approached slowly, and if a coyote seemed to want to play, as happens sometimes with the young ones, she ran around with them.

But Missy didn't hunt like a coyote. She didn't really hunt at all, nothing real at least. Liebe, who was half coyote, knew how to hunt, to stalk, to wait and wait, for the gopher she heard gnawing beneath the plants, until the head and body appeared above ground, and then pounce, kill, but not eat. Liebe killed many gophers and rabbits too, but never ate them. In general, Missy would see something move in the distance, race after it, lose it. She liked to chase cats, but if the cat stopped and hissed, Missy stopped and lied down. At the beach, she sprinted after seagulls and once surprised everyone, herself included, by bringing one down with a lunge and a paw to the ground. I caught her and released the bird, indignant but unharmed.

Though she was no great hunter in reality, hunting played an important role in Missy's imaginative life. There's a spot on our country road where Missy always began to stalk, low down, slowly, watching me, waiting for permission. When I'd say softly, "Okay" she'd begin the chase across the orchard at full speed until she'd reach the place where much of the ground is honeycombed with gopher mounds. She never caught anything, never seemed to come even close. While it's possible the pursuit was partially motivated by her senses, a tiny sound, vibrations beneath her feet, a faint but distinctive smell, more likely it was pure dog-imagination.