As our private hire car pulled up outside the gates of Jean Paul-Ly's home, loud barks started echoing from inside.
The commotion grew louder as we made our way towards the front door.
Then, in the corner of our eyes, a large canine appeared.
He stopped in his tracks, tilted his head, and looked at us with a delightedly curious look on its face.
We weren't his owners, but it didn't matter. There were visitors, and it was play time.
Seconds later, he spun around and darted away.
Gif via Gawain Pek
That was the very first time we saw Khan for ourselves, an Australian cattle dog and the reason for our visit that day.
The barks continued to ring out, and as soon as we stepped through the front door, Khan was ready for fun.
Before we could settle down, he leaped up at us with its tail wagging at full speed.
At about one year old, Khan was rambunctious and full of energy.
Gif via Gawain Pek.
When he wasn't trying to wrestle you, he was zooming around the living room.
Nothing out of the ordinary gave away the fact that Khan is the very first cloned dog to be brought into Singapore.
A cloned dog in Singapore
It was utter chaos in the living room as Khan bounced off the walls.
Not even the sight of a treat could keep the puppy calm.
Things only simmered when Ly got home.
"Khan, enough," Ly bellowed.
Gif via Gawain Pek.
Ly, 74, has been a veterinarian for almost 50 years and has been called a vet of 'last resort' in the media.
Growing up, Ly was imbued with a strong sense of compassion towards both humans and animals alike.
"My mother was passionate about animals since I was a child," Ly reminisced. In their family's view, pets are humans who can't talk.
It is this upbringing, as well as his own experiences, that makes Ly empathetic towards ill pets and their owners, motivating him to do all he can to help.
Khan, who finally settled down beside Ly, was born not too long ago in a Beijing cloning facility through a surrogate mother and with genetic material from the skin cells of his father, Khan senior.
He arrived in Singapore in August 2023, and is the first cloned dog here, according to Ly.
Special dog
Khan senior was not Ly's first cattle dog. In fact, Ly has had at leat four cattle dogs as pets before Khan senior came along in 2005.
Ly with his cattle dogs. Khan senior is on his right. To the left is Panda, Khan's son. Photo courtesy of Jean Paul-Ly.
Yet, Khan senior proved to be something else, demonstrating his unique personality in two incidents.
When Khan senior was adopted by Ly, he was about eight to 10 months old.
Back then, Ly and his family were living in Australia in a house on the water.
On the second day after Khan senior was brought home, Ly went fishing in the river.
"Next thing I know this little puppy was swimming next to me, heading for the other bank," Ly recounted.
The bank, Ly explained, was about half a kilometre away.
The water channel they were in was an estuary, which meant it was connected to the ocean where bull sharks were known to live.
"So, I grabbed the thing and pulled him in. Where was he going?! Eight to 10 months and swimming like a fish?" Ly exclaimed.
"On the third day, somehow he got out of the house and onto the beach, and he disappeared," Ly said.
The family then spent the day going around the beach and calling out to Khan senior.
When the search brought them back to their home, they found the dog casually sitting on their front porch.
"Three days in my house, you know how to get back? You have no GPS. The front and back yards are fenced off. How did he know to get home?" Ly blurted, his voice sounding just as impressed by Khan senior's boldness and intelligence as he was 18 years ago.
"So from that day I knew — special dog. He was very, very special. He was arrogant. Very proud. That’s why I call him Khan. Very proud dog," Ly boasted like a proud dad.
At home, Khan senior was stubborn. When he rested on the steps of the stairs, he refused to move for anyone.
"He's the second in the house," Ly quipped.
Photo courtesy of Jean Paul-Ly.
Khan senior also took on the duties of keeping the family safe, barking at strangers who came too close to the family compound.
All that aside, what made Khan senior truly special was how sensitive he seemed to the emotions of his human friend.
This sensitivity always came at the appropriate time, right when Ly needed it most.
“Every time I was sick or I’m depressed, he’ll always be there. He just knows. I would sit down, because I’m going through this divorce, he’ll come up to me, nudge my arm to get underneath it. Normally, he wouldn’t do that. He’d be lying down somewhere. He's like saying ‘I know, I know’.
Those were very defeating times for me. Because my children are all grown. My son would be in his room playing games. My daughter would be on the phone. And I’m downstairs alone with my own thoughts, going through this emotional and difficult phase of my life. He'd come and say ‘Cheer up, I'm here’. And when I’m sick, next thing I know, he would be beside my bed."
Promise
After Khan senior's son, Panda, passed away in 2018, things started to change.
"All of a sudden, overnight, he seemed to be older. He walked a bit slower, seemed to have developed deafness. His eyesight was not so good. That's within a year after his son died," Ly pointed out.
In 2019, Ly made the decision to collect skin cell samples from the ailing Khan senior.
The intention to clone Khan senior was never set in stone, however.
Ly shared that he only collected samples to allow for the possibility of cloning his beloved dog.
As he was collecting the samples, he made a promise to the loyal dog.
"I made a promise to Khan that we’ll meet again. [I told Khan], 'If you don't pass, fine. But if you pass, I would like to meet you.'” Ly revealed.
Accident
In 2020, things took a turn for the worse.
"I was coming home one night, the car porch was in darkness, as usual," the vet shared.
Ly's domestic helper turned on the porch light and helped to open the gate for Ly to park his car in their driveway.
As Ly was manoeuvring his car up the slight slope of the driveway, he "felt something there".
"I put on the accelerator to get over this. I thought, 'Someone left a rug on the floor or something.'" Ly said.
Then, out of a sudden, Ly's wife screamed from the door of their home: "It's Khan!"
Shocked, Ly put the car in reverse, but ran over Khan senior again.
He quickly got out of the car only to find Khan senior gravely injured.
He rushed the dog to the veterinary clinic.
"[The ultranographer] found that I ruptured his spleen, there was free blood in his abdomen, I ruptured his bladder. I damaged his back and spine, and he was partially paralysed. All these sound bad, right?" Ly admitted.
"In the night, I nursed him. I slept with him on the floor," Ly recalled, adding that as a veterinarian, he was prepared to be the one to carry out a surgery on Khan senior.
The next day, Ly took Khan senior to the specialist for an MRI scan.
During the visit, attempts to anaesthetise the dog for the scan "didn't go so well" and the specialists ended up having to resuscitate the dog.
In light of this, the specialist advised against surgery.
On the fourth day after the accident, Ly remembers having this feeling that "he had to pray" after having walked away from his faith for a long time.
"This was a cry for help," Ly commented.
He said his prayers, and went to work a half-believer in divine miracles.
When he returned home that night, he found Khan senior's condition had improved.
In the weeks that followed, Khan senior got better and stronger, eventually recovering from his injuries.
Photo courtesy of Jean Paul-Ly.
Khan senior's passing
However, at the time of the accident, Khan senior was already 15 years old.
Despite the miraculous recovery, his health continued on the decline.
The dog later developed epileptic fits which he repeatedly recovered from and relapsed into, according to Ly.
One day in 2021, Khan senior went into a very long fit.
While Ly suspected a tumour, he concluded that any further medical action would not be helpful for the aged Khan.
"So, one night I had a really bad feeling. So I told Khan, 'I give you permission to go. Just go. Daddy will be okay.'" Ly said, his voice mellowed as he recalled the moment.
The following morning at around six o'clock, the trusted Australian cattle was discovered to have passed on peacefully in his sleep.
"The thought [to clone Khan] did cross my mind then, I've got his skin cells. But I didn't want to resurrect him, because I needed to get over this grief," Ly shared.
Photo courtesy of Jean Paul-Ly.
Khan junior
Months passed and on one fateful day in 2022, an unexplained urge to meet old Khan came over Ly.
He phoned a lab in Beijing, asked them to take old Khan's skin cells out of preservation and bring his dog back to life.
The very first attempt to clone Khan using Khan senior's genetic material successfully produced a puppy, but it died within a week.
Several more attempts were made, but they bore no fruit.
At one point, Ly was ready to give up.
"I told myself, 'I'll live with it. I'm okay.' Because when I took cells from Khan he was already 15. It's not a good age to harvest cells. Because when you have an aged cell, the DNA will be partially damaged."
The Beijing lab team persisted.
Fast forward to 2023, Ly got a phone call from his Chinese counterparts.
"Khan was born," Ly summarised the good news he received during the call.
Khan junior. Photo by Gawain Pek.
After a long process of getting Khan junior vaccinated and quarantined at pet hotels and whatnot, Khan junior finally made it to Singapore.
When Ly first met Khan junior, there were "no words".
"I was, of course, very apprehensive and curious. A lot of emotions mixed in," Ly recalled, before getting interrupted during the interview by a restless Khan junior.
Throughout the interview with Ly, Khan junior rested quietly at Ly's feet.
Photo by Gawain Pek.
One hour in, the juvenile's energy could no longer be contained. The puppy rose up and started looking for someone to play with, throwing himself cheekily at those in the room.
Photo by Gawain Pek.
Gif via Gawain Pek.
"I must warn you, he's got this thing about pretty girls. So embarrassing. Hamsup lou (pervy in Cantonese)," Ly joked.
Continuing his account of their first meeting, Ly pointed out that there was no verbal exchange between him and Khan, just looks.
"I looked at him, he looked at me. Instant connection. I don't know how to explain that," Ly commented.
According to Ly, the typically rowdy Khan junior was much more subdued in his presence.
The puppy also listened to Ly's commands, which surprised Ly, considering Khan junior had no prior training.
However, there are some behavioural differences between Khan junior and his brazen 'father', the Khan senior.
Out in public, Khan junior is jumpy and gets scared by things like the roar of motorbike engines, owing to the amount of time he has spent indoors during his quarantine.
This is something Ly is trying to help Khan junior overcome.
Besides that, Khan's puppyhood is something Ly himself is adjusting to.
“I’ve been so used to having an old Khan. This one is a puppy. My house is upside down," Ly said in jest.
'Why not?'
"I've not regretted this. The best thing I've done in my life," Ly proclaimed.
"I mean, besides having children. First best thing, having children. Second best thing, cloning Khan. Third one, maybe marriage."
"Maybe it's guilt? Maybe it plays a part?" Ly responded when asked if the car accident in 2020 played a role in the decision to clone Khan.
"I don't consciously have that in my mind," the vet pointed out, adding that the decision was largely borne out of a longing to see Khan again and the fact that there was an opportunity to do so through cloning.
"So, why not?" Ly said.
In a 2021 statement by the Singapore Veterinary Association (SVA), the SVA states that it is "strongly opposed" to pet cloning.
SVA cites reasons such as the inability of cloning to provide an exact animal replica, the conditions of surrogate animals at cloning facilities and the fact that there are other animals in shelters in need of a home.
"Overall, the costs and negative implications on animal welfare far outweigh the benefits of pet cloning for this purpose, if there are any benefits at all," SVA concluded.
According to Lianhe Zaobao, the National Park Board's Animal and Veterinary Service shared that it is currently not required of pet owners to declare whether an animal is a clone or not.
Personal choice
As a seasoned vet who personally understands the profound connection a human can have with their pet, Ly actively sought out new treatment methods to help his animal patients.
Cloning is just another medical technology that has the potential to help his animal clients as well as their human owners.
"Stem cells, eye surgery, grafting, nutritional counselling, nutritional medicine, and at the end of it, after all that, cloning. And here’s my clone,” Ly said as he pointed to Khan.
“I’m hearing people cloning their dogs, and I work with all these people with cloned dogs. But I’ve never experienced it. And I wanted that experience. It’s neither right nor wrong. I think it’s my right to exercise that. So, why can’t I? It’s a personal choice. And everybody has their own reasons."
In countries like China, pet cloning has been ongoing since 2006 and is "old technology", Ly explained.
Ly also disagrees that the mainstreaming of pet cloning will have a knock-on effect on stray population.
Although Ly himself appeared to have decided to clone Khan based on an inexplicable urge that came out of the blue, the vet is of the opinion that cloning is not a decision to be made on a whim.
"Cloning is not an easy decision," the seasoned vet commented, adding that it is an expensive process.
In total, Ly spent US$70,000 (S$93,780) to clone Khan and bring him home.
"And you've got to have a special reason. Just being curious is not a good reason," Ly added.
Ly suggests that successful cloning is a rare occurrence, and only happens in about one in 80,000 to 100,000 cases.
After Ly and Khan's story first ran in the press, Ly revealed that enquiries about cloning has gone up.
The vet pointed out that 90 per cent of them are asking out of curiosity, while 10 per cent are seriously considering cloning their pets, beginning with skin cell harvesting and preservation.
For that 10 per cent, Ly said he extensively explains to them all the reasons they should consider cloning, and advises them against doing it in a haste.
Whatever it is, at the end of the day, it is the client's choice.
"When Khan [senior] passed, there was a certain emptiness," Ly admitted.
For Ly, the void in his life has now been filled by Khan junior.
Towards the end of our sit down with Ly, the 74-year-old grabbed Khan junior, huddled him under his arm on the sofa, and teased the puppy.
Khan junior's tail wagged enthusiastically, patting against the sofa seat in a constant beat.
Gif via Gawain Pek.
In that interaction, both Ly and Khan exuded a kind of familiarity and comfort.
Although Khan junior had just arrived in Ly's home just two months ago, it was as if the pair had known each other for a lifetime or two.
Top image via Gawain Pek