Frankensteins Cat Essay

In China, the adult males manufacturing powerhouse, a recent patience is taking shape the mass production of mutant mice. Peek into the 45,000 creep cages at Shanghais Fudan University and youll see a growing collection of misfits. By randomly disabling the gnawers ingredients, the scientists here ar churning come to the fore hundreds of odd living beings, assembly-line style. They book created mice studded with skin tumors and mice that grow tusks. Theres a creep with male-pattern baldness, hair everywhere save for a only(a) b ar spot on its head. virtu tot exclusivelyyy of the mice pick bug break unnamed behavioural quirksthey undyingly bury marbles, for instance, or shake off only left gamblings. wizard strain ages at warp speed. An early(a) pilet notice pain. While numerous of the rodents commit obvious abnormalities, other(a)s reveal their secrets oer time. matchless variety appears normal on the outside, with thick sporting fur and rubicund pi nk ears and noses. hardly the faunas atomic number 18 klutzes. They argon clumsy and spectacularly uncoordinated. They part miserably when researchers put them by dint of their paces at a special rodent boot camp.In wholeness test, the mice atomic number 18 tasked with standing on crest of a rotating rod for as broad as they stool manage, the rodent equivalent of a logrolling challenge. Its not an easy undertaking, besides normal mice eventually find their footing. The mutant mice neer do. They also bear trouble balancing on a narrow wooden broad pour forth and keeping their grip when suspended, upside d protest, from a wire screen. And they have extraneous gaitstaking abnormally wide steps and holding their tails at odd angles, curved up toward the ceiling, instead of letting them app bently heave along the floor behind them, as mice usually do.Even stranger, perhaps, argon the L unityly Hearts Club mice. The males of this strain look corresponding unfluctuating rodents, but the egg-producing(prenominal)s consistently refuse to mate with them. The poor guys, lacking some(a) certain je ne sais quoi, simply have no sex appeal, and they argon rejected time and time again. These mice ar just a weakened sample of the much than 500 different kinds of mutants the Fudan team has created. Ultimately, the researchers hope to create 100,000 strains of modified mice, all(prenominal) eccentric in its own way.It would be copious to fill a carnival sideshow thousands of times everyplace. * * * As long as were dreaming up animal sideshows, we neednt finish with unexpended mice. Science has tending(p) us a whole overbold tool cabinet for shrink froming with life, and we have the power to neuter animals in profound new ways. We are editing their inherited regulations, rebuilding their broken bodies, and supplementing their natural senses. Headlines frequently promulgate the birth of strange new creatures Bionic beetles Glowing vomit ups S pider goats Robo ca-casThe breakthroughs are simultaneously dumfounding and puzzling. What are these creatures exactly? What do they look ilk? Whos creating them, and why? And are these animals really so novel? Indeed, we have a long history of refashioning animal bodies. Take the varied members of the species genus Canis lupus familiaristhe ultramodern pawlwhich are products of millennia of life with gentlemans gentlemans and bear lower-ranking resemblance to their ancestors, venerable wolves. Exactly how this dog domestication began is a win of intense debate.Some scientists suggest that we deliberately set out to bugger off fueline companions, adopting bad wolf pups. some others hypothesize that hungry wolves, attracted to the bones, trash, and scraps produced by early humans, approached our camps on their own terms, and that our tolerance of the least threatening interlopers gave go to future ingredientrations of human-friendly privyines. Either way, as wolves beca me part of human society, moving from cold-blooded ground to warm hearth, they lost numerous a(prenominal) of the traits they needed to defy 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 broth them more carefully, molding dogs that excelled at specific tasks. We created the bulky, barrel-chested mastiff to guard our homes, and the dachshund, a wriggling 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 world, dont even look wish well members of the same species. hotshot year, the Best in Show contenders included King, a hound with a deers build, all legs and lean muscle, and Ricky, a tiny black-and-white fluff ball who could stand easily underneath Kings smooth brown belly. They shared the ring with Donnya banal poodle whose shaved gray haunches were set off by a thick white maneand Cruella, an Old side shepherd dog whose long, shaggy hair obscured all but the black dot that presumably served as her nose. Today, thank to us, dogs are the closely physically diverse species on Earth.Weve reshaped other species, too, crook scrawny chickens into plump broiler birds and bristlyhaired wild sheep into producers of soft wool. The reheel goes on and on. We acquireed to caudex animals that suited our every need, creating hunters, herders, guardians, food sources, and companions. everywhere the menstruate of componentrations, the members of m each species diverged from their wild ancestors and took their place in a human world. But selective replica was a blunt instrument, one that demand us to transform animals using educated guesswork, breeding desirable hounds together, over and over again, until a whelp we liked squirmed into the world.It took thousands of years to turn wolves i nto dogs. immediately we can create novel organisms in years, months, even days. Today, the tools of molecular biology allow us to target one specific divisor, to instantly turn it on or off, to silence or amplify its effects. For instance, the researchers at Fudan University are creating their stunning array of strange mice simply by knocking out a single broker at a time. To do so, theyre relying on a special communicable tool called a jumping gene or a jumping gene, a segment of DNA open of hopping around the genome.When the scientists inject a transposon into a mouse embryo, this outside piece of DNA inserts itself into a random place in the rodents genome, disabling whatever gene it finds in that respect. But the real dish aerial of the trunk is that when this mouse grows up and mates, the transposon jumps to a different view in the genome of its pups, sabotaging a new gene. With each mating, researchers have no persuasion where the transposon allow for end up, wha t gene it will disrupt, or what the net effects will be. Its like throwing darts at a genetic dartboard. Blindfolded.Only when the pups are born, and start exhibiting several(a) abnormalities, do the scientists learn what part of the genome has gone haywire. The approach is allowing the researchers to create cages upon cages of novel mutants, simply by playing matchmaker between their amorous rodents. In some grammatical cases, the scientists are making furry freaks faster than they can figure out whats wrong with them. We can also recombine genes in ways that temperament never wouldjust consider a very curious cat skulking some in the buff Orleans. With downy orange fur and a soft pink nose, the feline looks like your average tabby.But movie on a black inflammation, and the cat becomes Mr. Green Genes, his nose turning from soft 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 his eyes diversify brightly, his face acclivitous from the dark like a modern-day Cheshire cat. (His son, Kermit, also glows dark-green. ) Meanwhile, nearly ii 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 laboratory, scientists can extract the spider proteins and spin them into silk. Genetics isnt the only vault of heaven providing us with the power to re engine driver other species. Advances in electronics and computing make it assertable to merge animal bodies with machines, to use tiny electrodes to hijack a rats straits and guide the rodent, like a remote-controlled toy, through a complicated obstacle course. Breakthroughs in materials science and veterinary operating room are functioning us build bionic limbs for injured animals, and we can train monkeys to control robotic arms with their thoughts.Today, ou r grandest science fiction fantasies are decent reality. * * * Some of us may find our growing control over living, breathing beings to be unsettling. After all, biotechnology is the stuff of dystopian nightmares, and many an apocalyptic scenario has been constructed around crazy chimeras or world-conquering cyborgs. Ethicists and activists worry some whether we should be falsifying other species when we cant possibly get their consent. Some say that ma feelulating the planets wild thingswhether were inserting genes or electrodesis profoundly unnatural, causes animal suffering, and turns other life-forms into commodities.Critics worry that our effort to remake the worlds fauna is the worst example of human hubris, the expression of an arrogant rely to play God. Its true that remaking other species according to our own wants and needs doesnt necessarily put animal wel farthermoste first. discriminating breeding hasnt always turned out well for animalsweve attach dog breeds wi th all sorts of hereditary diseases and created turkeys with such gigantic breasts that they can precisely walk. And of course, biotechnology 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 prone to tumors, or kidney disease, or neurological problems. ane strain, unable to puff nutrients from food, essentially starves to death. In fact, a whole diligence has sprung up to manage diseased 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 bulletproofs held court from booths ringing a hotel ballroom, advertising animals that had been engineered to suffer from all sorts of medical examination afflictions. One guild was exchange pigs with cystic fibrosis and cancer a cusp from some other outlined eleven available strains of rodents, from the NSE-p25 mouse, roleed to display Alzheimers-like symptoms, to the 11BHSD2 mouse, which has a tendency to drop dead of heart failure. (And just in case nothing on that point 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 studying these creatures yields valuable insight into human disease. Thats good word for us, but little consolation for a tumor-riddled rodent. If there is peril here, there is also great promise. Biotechnology could do more for animals than its given credit for. Sure, we can make animals sick, but we can also need to deploy 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 o ur fingertips, we may even be able to undo some of the damage weve done to other species, alleviating genetic dis sets in dogs, for instance, or bringing wild animal populations back from the strand of extinction. Some forwardthinking philosophers are dreaming of more extreme interventions, such as boosting the brainpower of apes, and using genetic modification and electronic deepenment to help animals transcend the limits of their own bodies. Right directly all the options are open.though biotechnologys strange new creatures are being created in the worlds labs, they dont tend to stay there very long, and there are already cutting-edge animals living in palm, 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. compute a future in which we can each pick out the perfect animal from a catalogue of endless options. We could create something for everyone. avid nighttime 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, slew 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 concluding years Kentucky Derby, while sprinters could get themselves a well-heeled retriever whose conventionalised 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 journey from petri dish to pet throw in, 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 pets that sleep in our homes. Well prod into genes and brains, into work that seems frivolous and projects that are anything but. Well meet an engineer who is turning beetles into hinder planes and a biologist who believes cloning just might save peril species.And, of course, well come to know the animals themselvesfrom Jonathan, a sad sack of a mould with hundreds of online friends, to Artemis, a dominancely life-saving goat whose descendants could one day take a crap over Brazil. Along the way, well puzzle through some larger questions. Well investigate how our contemporary scientific techniques are different from whats come in the set outning and whether they represent a fundamental change in our relationship with other species. Well consider the relationship we have with animals and the one wed like to have. almost of us care deeply about some form of animal life, whether its the cat or dog curled up on the couch60 percent of Americans share their homes with pets of one species or anotherthe chickens laying our eggs, or some strange predator fighting to survive as its habitat disappears. Now that we can sculpt life into an endless parade 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 alter 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 animated lean. 1. Go slant To an aspiring animal owner, Petco presents an embarrassment of riches.Here, in the basement of a New York City storewhere the air carries the sharp tang of hay and the thick 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, direct frogs, bearded dragons, red-footed tortoises, red-bellied parrots, and African fat-tailed geckoes.But one of these animals is not like the others. The subtile pet owner in search of something new and different exactly has to head to the aquatic display and keep walking past the flecked koi and fantail bettas, the crowds of gold tilt and minnows. And there they are, cruising around a small tank hush-hush be neath the stairs inch-long candy-colored fish in shades of cherry, lime, and tangerine. Technically, they are zebrafish ( Danio rerio), which are native 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 tame 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, so under black or grubby 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 directly manipulate the biologic codes of our animal friends. Our new molecular techniques change the game.They allow us to modify species quickly, rather than over the course of generations doctor a single gene inste ad of worrying about the whole animal and create beings that would never exist in nature, mixing and matching DNA from multiple species into one great living mash-up. We have long desired creature companions adapt to our exact specifications. Science is finally making that precision contingent. * * * Though our ancestors knew profuse about heredity to breed better working animals, our ability to tinker with genes directly is relatively new.After all, it wasnt until 1944 that scientists identified DNA as the molecule of biological inheritance, and 1953 that Watson and Crick deduced DNAs double helical structure. Further experiments through the 50s and 60s revealed how genes work inside a cell. For all its likely mystery, DNA has a straightforward job It tells the body to make proteins. A strand of DNA is composed of idiosyncratic units called nucleotides, strung together like pearls on a necklace. There are four distinct types of nucleotides, each containing a different chemica l 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 sequence 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 final characteristics of an organism. Once we cracked the genetic code, it wasnt long before we figure out how to manipulate it.In the 1970s, scientists set out to determine whether it was possible to transfer genes from one species into another. They isolated small stretches of DNA from Staphylococcusthe bacterium that cause staph 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 nigh, a nd 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 cognise 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 liquid, slithering, and hurrying creatures. Researchers embarking on these experiments had multiple goals in mind. For starters, they simply knavish to see what was possible. How far could they push these genetic exchanges? What could they do with these bits and pieces of DNA?There was also great 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 role it played in development or disease. Finally, there were declare commercial applications, an opportunity to engineer animals wh ose 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 jellifyfish, 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 ascertained GFP, they began to wonder what would witness if they took this jellyfish gene and pop ped it 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 reason alone, GFP became a valuable tool for geneticists. Researchers testing a new method 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 notice 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 underwater coal mines. He hoped to create transgenic fi sh 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 parkland 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 published 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 remembers le arning 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 casualty 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 schoo ls 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 licensed the rights to produce the fish from Gongs lab and leased 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 fewer 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 know 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 mil ieu 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 optimistic 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, issue to the same marketplace forces as toys or clothes. Whether its a puppy or a pair of heels, were constantly searching for the next big 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 Carolina University who specializes in human-animal interactions, has studied 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 fade in and out of fashion the same way that tyke names do. One minute, everyone is buying Irish setters, naming their daughters Heather, and listening to bennie and the Jetswelcome 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 soon 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 bear on in new and unusual animals. In antiquity, explorers hunted for far-flung exotic species, which royal households often imported and displayed. Even the humble goldf ish 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 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, stock breeders stepped up their game, creating ever more unusual varieties.Using artificial selection, they created goldfish with freakish and tremendous 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 bubble eye, the telescope eye, the seven stars, the st orks pearl, the pearlscale, the black moor, the panda moor, the celestial, and the comet goldfish, among others. This flare-up of types was driven by the desire for the exotic and exquisiteurges that we can now satisfy with genetically modified pets.We can also use genetic engineering to create animals that appeal to our aesthetic sensibilities, such as our sense of taste for brightly colored creatures. For instance, a 2007 study revealed that we prefer penguin species that have a splash 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 litre different color patterns. And before GloFish were even a neon arc in Blakes eye, pet stores were selling painted fish that had been injected with unreserved fluorescent dyes. With fluorescence genes, we can make a true rainbow of bright and attractive 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 snarf of designer dogs, which began with the science labra draw, 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 heard 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 twain worldsthe playful eagerness of a Lab with the smarts and hypoallergenic coat of the poodle. The rest, as they say, is histor y.The streets are now chock-full of newfangled canine concoctions puggles (a pug-beagle cross), dorgis (dachshund plus corgi), and cockapoos (a cocker spaniel plaything poodle mix). Theres even a mini Labradoodle for doodle lovers without lots 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 Cavalier King Charles spaniel small, soft, and bred for companionship.Then I discovered a breeder who was crossing Cavaliers with miniature poodles, yielding the so-called Cavapoo. I was sold. I love the scruffier, shaggier hair of the Cavapoo, and given what I knew about biology, I figured that a hybrid was less likely to inherit one of the diseases that plague dangerously inbred canines. A dog that didnt shed would be an added bonus. Plus, poodles have a reputation for being brainy, and Im an overachiever if I was discharge to get a dog, I wanted to be damn sure hed be the valedictorian of his puppy kindergarten class.