A wealthy couple in Florida have paid $150,000 for what a South Korean laboratory claims is the world's first commercially cloned dog. Lancelot Encore is reportedly an exact duplicate of a family pet that died last year. Andy Gallacher reports from Florida:

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The biotech firm Best Friends Again claim that Lancelot Encore, as they've named the new puppy, is the world's first commercially cloned dog. The laboratory in South Korea, BioArts, includes a scientist that lost his research professorship at Seoul University in 2004, after fraudulently claiming he'd cloned human embryos and stem cells.

The new owners here in Florida say they're happy with their new dog and don't plan to clone any others.

It's thought that between three and four million unwanted dogs are killed at shelters across the US every year.

Andy Gallacher, BBC News, Miami

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froze
here, preserved by exposing to cold

DNA
short for deoxyribonucleic acid, the substance that carries any organism's genetic information

devastated
greatly upset

a clone
a genetically identical organism developed by the reproduction of a cell taken from the parent organism

biotech
short for biotechnology - the use of living things, e.g. cells and bacteria, in industrial processes

puppy
a young dog

fraudulently
dishonestly, with the intention to deceive

embryos
organisms in their earliest stages of development

stem cells
undifferentiated cells (i.e. immature, primitive cells that have not yet developed a specific structure and function) that can give rise to other cells of the same type

shelters
here, a shelter means a refuge for animals, i.e. an establishment that takes in and looks after lost or unwanted animals

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