RED ROVER, RED ROVER
Making the news this week was a story about South Korean scientists who, through cloning, have produced four beagles that appear normal in daylight, but put the pups in the dark or under ultraviolet light and the Rovers glow red.
Surprisingly, growing glowing cloned creatures isn’t unheard of, as scientists in the U.S., Japan, and Europe have already managed to clone fluorescent mice and pigs, but this glowing litter of “Ruppies” (a combination of “ruby” and “puppies”) is a first.
Frankly, luminous dogs are the only laboratory creation that makes any sense. Where’s the need for a pigmented pig or a radiant rodent? Speaking as one who shares her quarters with three canine speed bumps, a dog I’m less likely to trip over on middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom has some appeal.
The actual scientific reasoning behind creating fluorescent dogs has more to do with developing the ability to insert genes with specific traits that could lead to the development of new treatments for certain diseases, but I can’t help imagining the possible scenarios that might’ve inspired the scientists to start with glow-in-the-dark dogs.
I wonder if those scientists might not have had a dog like Molly, a solid black German shepherd I had as a teenager. Molly was likely still cutting puppy teeth when she first realized that, after dark, she was undetectable to her visually inferior human companions.
Take Molly out in the yard at night and she’d sometimes race far ahead, beyond the reach of the porch light. I would relax, often strolling down the yard to await her return, believing she’d gone far enough that she couldn’t possibly have slipped into the shadows, then backtracked. Yet time and again, that devious dog would lurk in the darkness, stealthily stalking her target until the moment was perfect for her to spring. She’d allow weeks to pass between scares, always just long enough for me to let down my guard before striking again.
Molly got such a kick out of her little game that I suppose even if I’d had the ability to make her glow in the dark, I wouldn’t have used it. With Murry, however, I’m not so sure.
Murry is the most loyal of dogs, taking his job as my constant companion so literally that, day or night, he’s seldom more than a few inches from my side. The problem is that the side he’s no more than a few inches away from constantly changes–front side, left side, front side again, right, back, left, front-and while that’s manageable during the day when I’m fully awake, if I get up at night he changes positions nearly as often, except instead of standing, he flops at my feet.
Imagine walking down a dark hall, pausing to turn on the light, then taking a step forward only to find that a 40-lb. lump has soundlessly materialized in your immediate path.
It’s easy to see how a dog that glows in the dark would have some appeal.
Perhaps I’ll get lucky and the scientists will develop a pooch that, when it’s about to abruptly and unpredictably change its direction, will beep.
