Frankensteins Cat Essay

In China, the innovations manufacturing powerho ingestion, a new industry is winning shape the mass production of mutant mice. Peek into the 45,000 mouse cages at Shanghais Fudan University and youll see a growing collection of misfits. By randomly disabling the rodents genes, the scientists here argon churning away hundreds of nonp atomic number 18il wildcats, assembly-line style. They bring in created mice studded with skin tumors and mice that grow tusks. theres a mouse with male-pattern baldness, vibrissa e genuinelywhere save for a l starly dim spot on its corpus. just or so of the mice beat strange behavioral quirksthey constantly bury marbles, for instance, or imbibe only left turns. champion stemma ages at warp speed. An an opposite(prenominal)(prenominal) crowd outt feel pain. eon some(prenominal) of the rodents have straightforward ab shapeities, new(prenominal)s reveal their secrets everywhere time. One figure appears normal on the outside, with t hick s at one time-white fur and healthy garden pink ears and noses. that the wildcats be klutzes. They are clumsy and spectacularly uncoordinated. They fail miserably when re searchers border them by dint of their paces at a special rodent bring up camp.In one test, the mice are t acquireed with standing on top of a rotating rod for as long as they can manage, the rodent equal of a logrolling challenge. Its non an easy under fetching, provided normal mice sluicetually find their footing. The mutant mice never do. They oerly have disorder balancing on a narrow wooden spread and guardianship their grip when suspended, upside down, from a wire screen. And they have strange gaits victorious abnormally wide steps and holding their tails at unpaired angles, curved up toward the ceiling, preferably of letting them simply drag on the floor behind them, as mice usually do.Even stranger, perhaps, are the lonely(prenominal) Hearts Club mice. The males of this s check into look like regular rodents, only when the females consistently refuse to mate with them. The poor guys, lacking some trusted je ne sais quoi, simply have no sex appeal, and they are rejected time and time again. These mice are just a small consume of the more than(prenominal) than 500 opposite kinds of mutants the Fudan police squad has created. Ultimately, the researchers hope to create 100,000 strains of special mice, each eccentric in its own way.It would be exuberant to necessitate a carnival side direct paces of times over. * * * As long as were dreaming up wolf side suggests, we neednt stop with peculiar mice. accomplishment has given us a whole new toolbox for tinkering with life, and we have the power to modify animals in pro demonstrate new ways. We are editing their inherit com kissent tags, rebuilding their broken bodies, and supplementing their natural senses. Headlines frequently herald the conduct of strange new creatures Bionic beetles Glowing cats Spi der just nowt joints RoboratsThe breakthroughs are concurrently astounding and puzzling. What are these creatures considerly? What do they look like? Whos creating them, and wherefore? And are these animals really so novel? Indeed, we have a long history of refashioning animal bodies. Take the varied members of the species Canis lupus familiaristhe raw firedogwhich are products of millennia of life with humans and bear little coincidence to their ancestors, gray wolves. Exactly how this dog domestication began is a subject of aggravated debate. several(prenominal) scientists suggest that we deliberately set out to acquire canid companions, adopting wild wolf pups. Others hypothesize that hungry wolves, attracted to the bones, trash, and scraps produced by primeval on humans, approached our camps on their own terms, and that our tolerance of the least threatening interlopers gave rise to proximo generations of human-friendly dogs-tooth violets. Either way, as wolves bec ame breach of human society, base from cold end to warm hearth, they lost many of the traits they infallible to survive in the wild.Their bodies and heads shrank, their faces and jaws grew more compact, and their teeth decreased in size. As our relationship with canines developed, we began to breed them more carefully, molding dogs that excelled at specific tasks. We created the bulky, barrel-chested mastiff to guard our radicals, and the dachshund, a wiggly salami of a dog, to shimmy into badger burrows. The diversity among modern dogs is so astounding that the thirty thousand dogs that strut their canine stuff at Crufts, the largest dog show in the populace, dont even look like members of the said(prenominal) species.One stratum, the Best in Show contenders included queer, a detent with a deers build, all legs and lean muscle, and Ricky, a tiny sear-and-white fluff ball who could stand easily underneath Kings smooth brown belly. They shared the ring with Donnya type p oodle dog whose shaved gray haunches were set complete by a thick white maneand Cruella, an Old English sheepdog whose long, shaggy-haired hair obscured all but the black dot that presumably served as her nose. Today, thanks to us, dogs are the most physically diverse species on Earth.Weve reshaped other species, too, turning scrawny chickens into plump broiler birds and bristlyhaired wild sheep into producers of cushioned wool. The list goes on and on. We learned to breed animals that suited our every need, creating hunters, moveers, guardians, food sources, and companions. Over the move of generations, the members of many species diverged from their wild ancestors and took their place in a human world. still selective didactics was a blunt instrument, one that required us to transform animals using educated guess devise, reproduction desir adapted hounds to detecther, over and over again, until a puppy we liked squirmed into the world.It took thousands of years to turn wol ves into dogs. Now we can create novel organisms in years, months, even days. Today, the tools of molecular biological science exit us to tar demand one specific gene, to instantly turn it on or off, to silence or amplify its do. For instance, the researchers at Fudan University are creating their arresting array of strange mice simply by knocking out a single gene at a time. To do so, theyre relying on a special hereditary tool called a jumping gene or a jumping gene, a segment of desoxyribonucleic acid capable of hopping rough the genome.When the scientists inject a transposon into a mouse embryo, this foreign voice of desoxyribonucleic acid inserts itself into a random place in the rodents genome, disabling whatever gene it finds there. just now the real beauty of the ashes is that when this mouse grows up and mates, the transposon jumps to a different location in the genome of its pups, sabotaging a new gene. With each mating, researchers have no idea where the transpo son will end up, what gene it will disrupt, or what the ultimate effects will be. Its like throwing darts at a genetic dartboard. Blindfolded.Only when the pups are born, and start exhibiting various abnormalities, do the scientists learn what part of the genome has gone haywire. The approach is haveing the researchers to create cages upon cages of novel mutants, simply by tomboying matchmaker between their amorous rodents. In some cases, the scientists are do furry freaks faster than they can figure out whats wrongly with them. We can as well as recombine genes in ways that character never wouldjust take on a very curious cat hide more or less New Orleans. With downy orangish fur and a sonant pink nose, the feline looks like your average tabby.But flick on a black lite, and the cat be scratchs Mr. Green Genes, his nose turning from leisurely pink to electric lime, due to a bit of man-of-war DNA tucked into each of his cells. The insides of his ears and the whites of h is eyes glow bright, his face emerging from the ugliness like a modern-day Cheshire cat. (His son, Kermit, in addition glows squirt. ) Meanwhile, nearly devil thousand miles away, a barn in Logan, Utah, is home to a strange herd of goats. Thanks to a pair of genes borrowed from a spider, each female goat produces milk thats chockfull of silk proteins.When the milk is processed in the lab, scientists can deplume the spider proteins and spin them into silk. Genetics isnt the only field providing us with the power to reengineer other species. Advances in electronics and computing make it possible to immingle animal bodies with machines, to use tiny electrodes to hijack a rats brain and slide by the rodent, like a remote-controlled run, through a complicated obstacle dustup. Breakthroughs in materials science and veterinary surgery are helping us build bionic limbs for injured animals, and we can train monkeys to control robotic arms with their judgements.Today, our grandest science fiction fantasies are becoming reality. * * * Some of us may find our growing control over living, vivacious beings to be unsettling. After all, biotech is the stuff of dystopian nightmares, and many an prophetical scenario has been constructed around crazy chimeras or world-conquering cyborgs. Ethicists and activists worry about whether we should be holdfast other species when we cant possibly get their consent. Some hypothecate that manipulating the planets wild thingswhether were inserting genes or electrodesis profoundly unnatural, pillow slips animal suffering, and turns other life-forms into commodities.Critics worry that our effort to remake the worlds creature is the worst example of human hubris, the expression of an arrogant require to play God. Its true that remaking other species according to our own wants and of necessity doesnt necessarily put animal welfare first. Selective breeding hasnt always turned out well for animalsweve saddled dog breeds with all sorts of hereditary diseases and created turkeys with such gigantic breasts that they can barely walk. And of course, ergonomics gives us new ways to do damage.The Fudan University scientists have created mouse embryos with defects so severe that they die in the womb. Some of their mutant mice are habituated to tumors, or kidney disease, or neurological problems. One strain, unable to abs rotate nutrients from food, basically starves to death. In fact, a whole industry has sprung up to sell pathological lab animals to scientists, with numerous biotech companies hawking their unique creations. In October 2011, many of these companies converged on St. Pete Beach, Florida, for an international meeting of scientists who work with genetically modified organisms.Representatives from various biotech firms held court of law from booths ringing a hotel ballroom, advertising animals that had been engineered to suffer from all sorts of medical afflictions. One company was selling pigs with cystic fibrosis and cancer a brochure from another outlined eleven available strains of rodents, from the NSE-p25 mouse, targeted to display Alzheimers-like symptoms, to the 11BHSD2 mouse, which has a object to drop dead of heart failure. (And just in case cipher there caught your fancy, one companys poster promised, You design the experiment, well design the mice.) These companies arent making sickly animals purely to be cruel, of course examine these creatures yields worth(predicate) insight into human disease. Thats good news for us, but little consolation for a tumor-riddled rodent. If there is peril here, there is withal dandy promise. Biotechnology could do more for animals than its given doctrine for. Sure, we can make animals sick, but we can also choose to position our speciesshaping powers to help other species survive and thrive, to create healthier, happier, fitter critters, and some scientists are doing just that.With the sophisticated techniques at our f ingertips, we may even be able to undo some of the damage weve done to other species, alleviating genetic disorders in dogs, for instance, or bringing wild animal populations back from the brink of extinction. Some forwardthinking philosophers are dreaming of more extreme interventions, such as boosting the mastermind of apes, and using genetic modification and electronic enhancement to help animals go across the limits of their own bodies. Right now all the options are open.though biotechnologys strange new creatures are being created in the worlds labs, they dont tend to snag there very long, and there are already cutting-edge animals living in fields, homes, and nature preserves across America. Before long, we may all be able to shop for animals the same way that scientists in Florida shopped for carefully engineered mice. Imagine a future in which we can each pick out the stainless animal from a catalogue of endless options. We could create something for everyone. Avid wicke dness reader? How about your own Mr. Green Genes so you can stay up late, reading by the light of the cat?For the twelve-year-old who has everything, skip the toy cars and planes at Christmas and wrap up a remote-controlled rodent. Equestrians could order up a foal with the same genes as the winner of last years Kentucky Derby, while sprinters could get themselves a golden retriever whose artificial carbon-fiber legs would allow it to run as fast as a greyhound. The tools of biotechnology are becoming increasingly accessible to the public future generations of animal lovers may be able to design their own creatures without fancy lab equipment or advanced scientific training.* * * In the pages that follow, well go on a move around from petri dish to pet store, seeking out the revolutionary breeds of beasts that are taking their places in the world. Well venture from the rocky shores of California to the dusty fields of Texas, from the canine clones that live in Korean labs to the pe ts that sleep in our homes. Well delve into genes and brains, into work that seems frivolous and projects that are anything but. Well meet an engineer who is turning beetles into stunt planes and a biologist who believes cloning just might save endangered species.And, of course, well come to know the animals themselvesfrom Jonathan, a sad sack of a seal with hundreds of online friends, to Artemis, a emfly life-saving goat whose descendants could one day take over Brazil. on the way, well puzzle through some larger psyches. Well probe how our contemporary scientific techniques are different from whats come before and whether they incorporate a fundamental change in our relationship with other species. Well consider the relationship we have with animals and the one wed like to have.Most of us care deeply about some form of animal life, whether its the cat or dog curled up on the arrange60 percent of Americans share their homes with pets of one species or anotherthe chickens plac e our eggs, or some exotic predator fighting to survive as its habitat disappears. Now that we can sculpt life into an endless troop of forms, what we choose to create reveals what it is we want from other speciesand what we want for them. But even if you feel no special affection for the creatures with whom we share this planet, our reinvention of animals matters for us, too.It provides a peek into our own future, at the ways we may start to enhance and demasculinize ourselves. Most of all, our grand experiments reveal how entangled the lives of human and nonhuman animals have become, how intertwined our fates are. Enterprising scientists, entrepreneurs, and philosophers are dreaming up all sorts of projects that could alter the course of our collective future. So what does biotechnology really mean for the worlds wild things? And what do our brave new beasts say about us? Our search for answers begins with a tank of glowing tilt. 1. Go Fish To an aspiring animal owner, Petco presents an embarrassment of riches.Here, in the basement of a New York urban center storewhere the air carries the sharp tang of hay and the dull musk of rodent dander is a squeaking, squealing, almost endless menagerie of potential pets. There are the spindly-legged lizards scuttling across their sand-filled tanks the preening cockatiels, a spray of golden feathers atop their heads and, of course, the cages of pink-nosed white mice training for a wheel-running marathon. There are chinchillas and canaries, dwarf hamsters, tree frogs, beard dragons, red-footed tortoises, red-bellied parrots, and African fat-tailed geckoes.But one of these animals is not like the others. The discerning pet owner in search of something new and different merely has to head to the aquatic display and keep walking past the speckled koi and fantail bettas, the crowds of goldfish and minnows. And there they are, cruising around a small tank hidden on a lower floor the stairs inch-long candy-colored fish in shades of cherry, lime, and tangerine. Technically, they are zebrafish ( Danio rerio), which are primal to South Asian lakes and rivers and usually covered with black and white stripes. But these swimmers are adulterated with a smidgen of something extra.The Starfire Red fish harbor a dash of DNA from the sea anemone the Electric Green, Sunburst Orange, cosmic Blue, and Galactic Purple strains all have a nip of sea coral. These borrowed genes turn the zebrafish fluorescent fixture, so under black or glum lights they glow. These are GloFish, Americas first genetically engineered pets. Though weve meddled with many species through selective breeding, these fish mark the beginning of a new era, one in which we have the power to nowadays manipulate the biological codes of our animal friends. Our new molecular techniques change the game.They allow us to modify species quickly, quite than over the course of generations doctor a single gene instead of worrying about the whole anim al and create beings that would never live in nature, mixing and matching DNA from multiple species into one great living mash-up. We have long desired creature companions tailored to our exact specifications. Science is finally making that precision possible. * * * Though our ancestors knew enough about heredity to breed better working animals, our ability to tinker with genes straight off is relatively new.After all, it wasnt until 1944 that scientists identified DNA as the mite of biological inheritance, and 1953 that Watson and Crick deduced DNAs double helical structure. encourage experiments through the 50s and 60s revealed how genes work inside a cell. For all its seeming mystery, DNA has a straightforward job It tells the body to make proteins. A draw range of mountains of DNA is composed of individual units called nucleotides, strung together like pearls on a necklace. There are four distinct types of nucleotides, each containing a different chemical base.Technically, the bases are called adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, but they usually go by their initials A, T, C, and G. What we call a gene is merely a long order of these As, Ts, Cs, and Gs. The order in which these letters appear tells the body which proteins to makeand where and when to make them. Change some of the letters and you can alter protein manufacturing and the ultimate characteristics of an organism. erstwhile we cracked the genetic code, it wasnt long before we figured out how to manipulate it.In the 1970s, scientists set out to determine whether it was possible to careen genes from one species into another. They isolated small stretches of DNA from Staphylococcusthe bacteria that cause staphylococci infectionsand the African clawed frog. Then they inserted these bits of biological code into E. coli. The staph and frog genes were fully functional in their new cellular homes, making E. coli the worlds first genetically engineered organism. Mice were up next, and in the early 1980s, two labs reported that theyd created rodents carrying genes from viruses and rabbits.Animals such as these mice, which contain a foreign piece of DNA in their genomes, are known as transgenic, and the added genetic sequence is called a transgene. Encouraged and inspired by these successes, scientists started moving DNA all around the animal kingdom, swapping genes among all sorts of swimming, slithering, and scurrying creatures. Researchers embarking on these experiments had multiple goals in mind. For fledglings, they simply wanted to see what was possible. How far could they resist these genetic exchanges? What could they do with these bits and pieces of DNA?There was also immense potential for basic research taking a gene from one animal and putting it into another could help researchers learn more about how it worked and the position it played in development or disease. Finally, there were promising commercial applications, an opportunity to engineer animals whos e bodies produced highly desired proteins or creatures with economically valuable traits. (In one early project, for instance, researchers set out to make a leaner, faster-growing pig. ) Along the way, geneticists developed some neat tricks, including figuring out how to engineer animals that glowed.They knew that some species, such as the crystal man-of-war, had evolved this talent on their own. One moment, the jellyfish is an unremarkable transparent blob the next its a neon-green orb floating in a dark sea. The secret to this light show is a compound called green fluorescent protein (GFP), naturally produced by the jellyfish, which takes in blue light and reemits it in a kiwi-colored hue. Hit the jelly with a beam of blue light, and a ring of green dots will suddenly appear around its bell-shaped body, not unlike a string of Christmas lights wrapped around a tree.When scientists discovered GFP, they began to wonder what would happen if they took this jellyfish gene and popped i t into another animal. Researchers isolated and copied the jellyfishs GFP gene in the lab in the 1990s, and then the real fun began. When they transferred the gene into roundworms, rats, and rabbits, these animals also started producing the protein, and if you blasted them with blue light, they also gave off a green glow. For that rationality alone, GFP became a valuable tool for geneticists. Researchers testing a new manner of genetic modification can practice with GFP, splicing the gene into an organisms genome.If the animal lights up, its obvious that the procedure worked. GFP can also be coupled with another gene, allowing scientists to determine whether the gene in question is active. (A green glow means the paired gene is on. ) Scientists discovered other potential uses, too. Zhiyuan Gong, a biologist at the National University of Singapore, wanted to use GFP to turn fish into living pollution detectors, swimming canaries in semiaquatic coal mines. He hoped to create transg enic fish that would blink on and off in the presence of toxins, turning bright green when they were swimming in contaminated water.The first step was simply to make fish that glowed. His team accomplished that feat in 1999 with the help of a common genetic procedure called microinjection. Using a tiny needle, he squirted the GFP gene directly into some zebrafish embryos. In some of the embryos, this foreign bit of biological code managed to sneak into the genome, and the fish gave off that telltale green light. In subsequent research, the biologists also made strains in redthanks to a fluorescent protein from a relative of the sea anemoneand yellow, and experimented with adding these proteins in combination.One of their produce papers showcases a neon rainbow of fish that would do Crayola proud. * To Richard Crockett, the co-founder of the company that sells GloFish, such creatures have more than mere scientific valuethey have an obvious aesthetic beauty. Crockett vividly remember s learning about GFP in a biology class. He was captivated by an image of brain cells glowing green and red, thanks to the addition of the genes for GFP and a red fluorescent protein. Crockett was a premed student, but he was also an entrepreneur. In 1998, at the age of twenty-one, he and a childhood friend, Alan Blake, launched an online education company.By 2000, the company had become a mishap of the dot-com crash. As the two young men cast about for new business ideas, Crockett thought back to the luminescent brain cells and put a proposal to Blake What if they brought the beauty of fluorescence genes to the public by selling glowing, genetically modified fish? At first, Blake, who had no background in science, thought his friend was joking. But when he discovered that Gong and other scientists were already fiddling with fish, he realized that the idea wasnt far-fetched at all.Blake and Crockett wouldnt even need to invent a new organismtheyd just need to take the shimmering sc hools of transgenic fish out of the lab and into our home tanks. The pair founded Yorktown Technologies to do just that, and Blake took the lead during the firms early years, setting up shop in Austin, Texas. He licenced the rights to produce the fish from Gongs lab and hired two commercial fish farms to breed the pets. (Since the animals pass their fluorescence genes on to their offspring, all Blake needed to create an entire line of neon pets was a few starter adults.) He and his partner dubbed them GloFish, though the animals arent technically glow-in-thedarkat least, not the same way that a set of solar system stickers in a childs bedroom might be. Those stickers, and most other glow-in-the-dark toys, work through a scientific property known as phosphorescence. They absorb and store light, reemitting it gradually over time, as a soft glow thats visible when you turn out all the lights. GloFish, on the other hand, are fluorescent, which means that they absorb light from the envi ronment and beam it back out into the world immediately.The fish appear to glow in a dark room if theyre under a blue or black light, but they cant store light for later turn the artificial light off, and the fish stop shining. Blake was approbatory about their prospects. As he explains, The ornamental fish industry is about new and different and exciting varieties of fish. And if new, different, and exciting is what youre after, what more could you ask for than an animal engineered to glow electric red, orange, green, blue, or purple thanks to a dab of foreign DNA?Pets are products, after all, subject to the same marketplace forces as toys or clothes. Whether its a puppy or a pair of heels, were constantly clear-cut for the next bouffant thing. Consider the recent enthusiasm for teacup pigstiny swine cute enough to make you swear off pork chops forever. Harold Herzog, a psychologist at western sandwich Carolina University who specializes in human-animal interactions, has studie d the way our taste in animals changes over time.When Herzog consulted the registry of the American Kennel Club, he found that dog breed choices pass in and out of fashion the same way that baby name calling do. One minute, everyone is buying Irish setters, naming their daughters Heather, and listening to Bennie and the Jets refreshing to 1974 and then its on to the next great trend. Herzog discovered that between 1946 and 2003, eight breedsAfghan hounds, chow chows, Dalmatians, Dobermans, Great Danes, Old English sheepdogs, rottweilers, and Irish setterswent through particularly pronounced boom and bust cycles.Registrations for these canines would skyrocket, and then, as short as they reached a certain threshold of popularity, people would begin searching for the next fur-covered fad. Herzog identified a modern manifestation of our long-standing interest in new and unusual animals. In antiquity, explorers hunted for far-flung exotic species, which majestic households often impor ted and displayed. Even the humble goldfish began as a luxury for the privileged classes. Native to Central and East Asia, the wild fish are usually covered in silvery gray scales.But ancient Chinese mariners had noticed the occasional yellow or orange variant wriggling in the water. Rich and powerful Chinese families self-collected these mutants in private ponds, and by the thirteenth century, fish keepers were breeding these dazzlers together. goldfish domestication was born, and the once-peculiar golden fish gradually spread to the homes of less-fortunate Chinese familiesand households elsewhere in Asia, Europe, and beyond. As goldfish grew in popularity, breeders stepped up their game, creating ever more unusual varieties.Using artificial selection, they created goldfish with freakish and fantastical features, and the worlds aquariums now contain the fantail, the veiltail, the butterfly tail, the lionhead, the goosehead, the golden helmet, the golden saddle, the ripple eye, th e telescope eye, the seven stars, the storks pearl, the pearlscale, the black moor, the panda moor, the celestial, and the comet goldfish, among others. This explosion of types was operate by the desire for the exotic and exquisiteurges that we can now requite with genetically modified pets.We can also use genetic design to create animals that appeal to our aesthetic sensibilities, such as our preference for brightly colored creatures. For instance, a 2007 study revealed that we prefer penguin species that have a sputter of yellow or red on their bodies to those that are simply black and white. Weve bred canaries, which are naturally a dull yellow, to exhibit fifty different color patterns. And before GloFish were even a neon glint in Blakes eye, pet stores were selling painted fish that had been injected with simple fluorescent dyes. With fluorescence genes, we can make a true rainbow of bright and beautiful pets.* Engineered pets also fit right into our era of personalization. We can have perfume, granola, and Nikes customized to our individual specificationswhy not design our own pets? Consider the recent rise of couturier dogs, which began with the Labradoodle, a cross between a Labrador retriever and a standard poodle. Though theres no telling when the first Lab found himself fancying the wellgroomed poodle down the street, most accounts trace the origin of the modern Labradoodle to Wally Conron, the breeding director of the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia.In the 1980s, Conron comprehend from a blind woman in Hawaii, who wanted a guide dog that wouldnt aggravate her husbands allergies. Conrons solution was to breed a Lab, a traditional seeing-eye dog, with a poodle, which has hypoallergenic hair. Other breeders followed Conrons lead, arranging their own mixed-breed marriages. The dogs were advertised as providing families with the best of both worldsthe implike eagerness of a Lab with the smarts and hypoallergenic coat of the poodle. The rest, as they say, is history.The streets are now chock-full of newfangled canine concoctions puggles (a pug-beagle cross), dorgis (dachshund plus corgi), and cockapoos (a cocker spanielminiature poodle mix). Theres even a mini Labradoodle for doodle lovers without a good deal of space. Tweaking the genomes of our companions allows us to create a pet that fulfills virtually any desire some practical, some decidedly not. When I set out to get a dog, I thought I had settled on the high-handed King Charles spaniel small, soft, and bred for companionship.Then I discovered a breeder who was cross Cavaliers with miniature poodles, yielding the so-called Cavapoo. I was sold. I loved the scruffier, shaggier hair of the Cavapoo, and given what I knew about biology, I figured that a crossbred was less likely to inherit one of the diseases that plague perilously indwelling canines. A dog that didnt shed would be an added bonus. Plus, poodles have a reputation for being brainy, and Im an o verachiever if I was going to get a dog, I wanted to be damn sure hed be the valedictorian of his puppy kindergarten class.