Two designer dogs cloned in a laboratory have started work guarding murderers and rapists at one of Russia’s toughest jails.
Tom and Jack have shown skills ‘beyond all expectations’ in their first three weeks at Forced Labour Camp Number One in Yakutsk.
The dogs had struggled in early training, but it is now thought they were simply adjusting to the cold climate, where temperatures can plunge to -40C.
One has even been given a pair of special boots to help cope with the conditions.
Russia is using two dogs created at the world’s first cloning facility in South Korea to guard one of its toughest prisons, located in Yakutsk
The animals, called Tom and Jack, were created from Korea’s best guard dogs at a cost of £75,000 each and are part of a brood of 500 animals
At first the animals under-performed in training, but it is now thought they were just adjusting to the climate, which can reach -40C
Having adjusted to the cold, and with one dog equipped with special boots to keep his paws warm (left), the pair are now performing well
The pair were bred by leading international cloning expert Dr Hwang Woo Suk from South Korea.
He gifted them to the law enforcement authorities in Siberia’s vast Yakutia region where he is separately hunting for woolly mammoth remains preserved in the permafrost in his quest to clone the hairy giants back to life.
The Belgian Malinois dogs are now guarding 720 male inmates at the harsh labour camp in which Russia has been accused of holding political prisoners.
Inmates include Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker sentenced to 20 years jail for plotting terrorists acts in Crimea.
He was moved from the high security penal colony soon after an August protest against his detention by punk group Pussy Riot in Yakutsk.
The dogs were gifted by Dr Hwang Woo Suk to the prison in Siberia, the region where he is currently searching for a woolly mammoth in the hopes of bringing the creature back to life
Staff at the prison say the pair have been able to follow the train of an escapee and complete and obstacle course without getting distracted
Dr Hwang Woo Suk speaks about the process of creating the animals in front of a mammoth skeleton – an animal he hopes to bring back to life
Handlers at the prison said, despite their job, the dogs have a ‘gentle nature’ and are ‘smart’
Earlier Tom and Jack — bred in a Seoul laboratory from the cells of ‘best Korean sniffer dogs’ – were reported to have flunked a test to join the police force in the city, Russia’s diamond capital and once a key staging post for Stalin’s gulag camps.
Experts now believe this test came too early, and that they needed longer to adapt to the harsh climate.
In the labour camp, they ‘have shown their ability to follow the trail of a would-be escapee,’ and navigate a canine obstacle course, reported The Siberian Times.
They are ‘easily adapting to the environment’ and surpassing expectations of their abilities.
Irina Babikova, senior dog instructor at the labour camp, said: ‘They are smart and have a gentle nature.
‘Another positive thing is that they are able to keep working without paying attention to the external distractions and weather conditions.’
This week temperatures are nudging minus 40C.
The designer dogs, valued at £75,000 each, are among 500 cloned puppies from the Sooam Biotech laboratories in Seoul, the world’s first animal cloning centre.
Dr Hwang poses with one of the animals at his cloning facility in Seoul, South Korea
One of Dr Hwang’s cloned animals is put through its paces at his cloning facility, which is the first of its kind anywhere in the world
Scientists extract DNA from the cells of some of Korea’s best guard dogs to be cloned
Tom and Jack are part of a brood of 500 animals that were produced in South Korea