Planet of the dogs

I think the first animal that will be seriously screened and engineered for intelligence will be the dog.

We have been breeding dogs for behavior and intelligence for at least 15,000 years. There have been military breeding programs directed primarily at intelligence from at least the 70s. In a few generations, the dogs understood hundreds of words.

Presumably, this kind of classical breeding program would make extremely rapid progress for a few decades and then plateau (unless the obstacles are primarily in developmental timing of gene expression, in which case progress using classical breeding techniques might go on for many decades).

Now that we can cheaply read DNA, however, this process can be ramped up thousands or millions of fold by screening embryos. They would still be dogs, just the best of them (Gattaca joke).

Ultimately, once even that plateau is reached, the last step will be direct genetic engineering.

And if they can be engineered to speak...
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17206-human-speech-gene-gives-mouse-a-baritone-squeak.html
What will happen if we add the genes for speech? Dogs may not have the anatomy for speech, but their comprehension could go through the roof. And then of course some crazy people will try to kill them as abominations... Or they might become more manipulative than they already are...

Then the dogs, too, will be expelled from Eden and will come to know that they are mortal.

Knowing what snakes humans can be, no doubt some will use these dogs and exploit them more cruelly than humans exploit other humans. Which could lead to Planet of the Dogs.