7 half-pound mutts become first test-tube puppies in world

In a rare case of a scientific breakthrough that is equal parts adorable and groundbreaking, researchers managed to impregnate a dog via in-vitro fertilization, successfully leading to a litter for the first time. According to the Associated Press, researchers at the University had created 19 embryos from the eggs of a female dog the sperm of a male dog before transferring them to a female dog which eventually gave birth to a litter of seven puppies.

Born to the same beagle mother, the puppies included two produced from a different beagle mother and a cocker spaniel father, and five from two other pairings of beagles.

“We each took a puppy and rubbed it with a little towel and when it started to squiggle and cry, we knew we had success”, said Dr. Alexander Travis, who runs the lab at the Baker Institute for Animal Health at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, New York.

Aimee Llewellyn, Head of Health and Research at the Kennel Club, said: “This breakthrough is extremely interesting, but it should be remembered that domestic dogs are not an endangered species, so this type of research is not necessary for species preservation as it may be for animals such as the Giant Panda or Black Rhino”.

A surrogate mother dog has given birth to the world’s first litter of IVF puppies. They must then return the embryo into a host female at the right time in her reproductive cycle.

Past attempts at canine IVF failed because a female dog’s reproductive cycle differs from that of other mammals.

However, the team at Cornell discovered that if they left the eggs inside the dog for an extra day, they could be successful fertilised. This allowed precise control of the timing for when the embryos were inserted into the recipient dog’s oviducts, which are essentially the canine version of Fallopian tubes in humans. The researchers found that if they removed the dog’s eggs several days later than is typically done, the chances of fertilization went way up. Dogs ovulate only once or twice a year and the eggs they release are very immature.

“We made those two changes, and now we achieve success in fertilization rates at 80 to 90 percent”, Travis said.

Klondike’s beagle mother was fertilized using artificial insemination.

The paper’s first author, Jennifer Nagashima, was a graduate student whose participation in the project was funded by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. We can also freeze oocytes, but in the absence of in vitro fertilization, we couldn’t use them.

The achievement could eventually help endangered canine species, the scientists say: frozen eggs and sperm from “genetically valuable individuals” could be used to continue to create offspring after the animals themselves have died. While selecting for desired traits, inbreeding has also led to detrimental genetic baggage.

With a combination of IVF and gene editing, it may be possible to eliminate inherited diseases in dogs.

“Instead of trying to cure disease, we can help prevent it from happening in the first place”, he said.