Britain's first cloned dog is expecting a litter of dachshund puppies - four years after being conceived in a test tube.

Rebecca Bourne, 34, from Cambridgeshire, put her elderly dachshund, Winnie, forward to be cloned in a £60,000 competition organised by South Korean tech firm, Sooam Biotech.

She won, and the cloned puppy, called Minnie Winnie, was conceived in a test tube and born in Seoul on March 30, 2014.

Now Minnie Winnie is expecting children of her own - and the new puppies are not clones.

The news comes just a year after the original Winnie died, aged 15, after being hit by a car.

Rebecca Bourne (pictured with Minnie Winnie), 34, from Cambridgeshire, put her elderly dachshund, Winnie, forward to be cloned in a £60,000 competition organised by South Korean tech firm, Sooam Biotech

Scans (pictured) show that Minnie Winnie is carrying at least two puppies

The news comes just a year after the original Winnie (right) died, aged 15, after being hit by a car last year

Mrs Bourne told The Sun: 'I can't wait to meet my Minnie Minnie Winnies. I'm over the moon. I'm sure I'll see something of Winnie in them.

'Winnie was such an enormous part of my life and I felt lost without her.

'Minnie Winnie is growing and having cravings for human food, including tacos. To know Winnie's memory lives on is so comforting.'

Mrs Bourne, who featured her dogs and son Wilbur, two, in a book The Wilbies Go To The Moon, who her friend's dachshund, Otto, as the father.

Scans show that Minnie Winnie is carrying at least two puppies.

The process of conceiving Minnie Winnie was filmed by a television company and was aired in 2014.

Mrs Bourne told The Sun : 'I can't wait to meet my Minnie Minnie Winnies. I'm over the moon. I'm sure I'll see something of Winnie in them'

Dogs were first cloned in South Korea in 2005, by Sooam Biotech scientist Dr Woo Suk Hwang, but this was the first time a British dog had been reproduced. Pictured is Mrs Bourne with Minnie Winnie in 2014

The embryo was then put into a donor animal, and the resulting puppy was born by caesarean section, weighing just over 1lb

Dogs were first cloned in South Korea in 2005, by Sooam Biotech scientist Dr Woo Suk Hwang, but this was the first time a British dog had been reproduced.

Mrs Bourne, a caterer from west London at the time, said she read about the cloning competition and entered her 12-year-old dachshund, sending in videos of her pet.

Winnie made it onto a shortlist of three, and after she won, a sample of her skin tissue was removed, and sent to South Korea in liquid nitrogen. There, the cells were put into eggs provided by a bitch of the same breed, before a spark of electricity fused the two.

British quarantine restrictions meant she had to wait six months before she could bring the puppy home to meet the original Winnie

Mrs Bourne, who flew to Seoul and watched the puppy being born, said it looked just like her own pet

Mrs Bourne, who featured her dogs and son Wilbur, two, in a book The Wilbies Go To The Moon

Pictured is Mrs Bourne's son, Wilbur, two, with Minnie Winnie, who is Britain's first cloned dog

The embryo was then put into a donor animal, and the resulting puppy was born by caesarean section, weighing just over 1lb.

Mrs Bourne, who flew to Seoul and watched the puppy being born, said it looked just like her own pet.

British quarantine restrictions meant she had to wait six months before she could bring the puppy home to meet the original Winnie.