Meet the World’s First Test Tube Puppies [VIDEO]
The world's first puppies conceived in a test tube are alive and well, and just as adorable as you'd expect them to be.
"We each took a puppy and rubbed it with a little towel and when it started to squiggle and cry, we knew we had success," says Dr. Alexander Travis of the July 10 birth, who runs the lab at the Baker Institute for Animal Health at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, New York. "Their eyes were closed. They were just adorable, cute, with smooshed-in faces. We checked them to make sure they looked normal and were all breathing."
The 7 puppies are a mix of beagle, Labrador, and cocker spaniel - now all healthy 5-month-olds. All but one female - who's being kept by the lab to have her own litter - have been adopted.
In vitro fertilization is widely used to aid human reproduction. These are the first puppies to be born via IVF. The first human birth from IVF was in 1978.