I don’t think this is the book you’re thinking of, but there’s also Lives of the Monster Dogs.
Why would you assume actual uplifted dogs would act like that, though? The problem is that we don’t know how they’d react.
And, as soon as we did this, there’d be no way we could keep dogs as pets. They’d get their own civil rights revolution. Then, since they are superior to us in some ways, having the intelligence to use it probably means we’d become the secondary species. Or at least wars as mentioned above.
If we wanted to elevate, we’d need to do it gradually, and on a really small scale. And even then the ethics are questionable, as the dog we’re experimenting on on would have a necessarily cruel life. How do we deal with the problem of quasi-sapient creatures?
I don’t think so, T. They’d need a hell of a lot more than human-level intelligence to be able to compete on a technological and military level.
What, you don’t think they’d have human allies?
That’s not how I remember it, given that humans left the world to the dogs and robots (a symbiotic relationship – dogs supply intelligence, robots supply hands).
And the uplifted ants were a big problem.
No. Their human sympathisers might have canine auxilleries, but that’s a long way from claiming there’s a credible risk that the dogs could come out on top.
Yes, I suppose humans would never be as loyal to dogs, as dogs were to humans.
You completely missed the point. It’s not that the sympathisers would sell the dogs out, but that in any modern alliance between humanoids and quadrupeds, the guys with the opposable thumbs and fine dexterity are going to be doing all the heavy lifting, so to speak. The closest the dogs can get to being the primary species is if the humans decide to humour their claim of being equals, because they’re still dependant on the humans for technology.
Who’s saying they’d want to be the “primary species”? They might just want to have more say in where they were walked and what they were given to eat. And some humans might think those rights are worth fighting for, to give them at least the same footing as humans.
BigT did.
Yes. This is what I was originally questioning, though the rest of the discussion has been interesting. I guess I wasn’t clear enough in my OP. That seems to be a trend of mine 
Well frankly, this is a much more interesting question.
I’m going to say that no, we don’t have any innate moral or ethical obligation to do so. One reason would be, we don’t really know what that would do to dogs as a species, nor what it would do to human society. The results of well-intentioned actions aren’t always beneficial, and until we know we can achieve the outcome we desire (or at least stand a reasonably good chance of success), it would be folly to try something unprecedented like this.
They are making wonderful progress with gorillas, why not dogs?
http://www.theonion.com/video/scientists-successfully-teach-gorilla-it-will-die,17165/
Great find. That’s been bookmarked.
At the moment the majority of dogs are pro human.
They are loving,faithful and unjudgemental to their owners and many other people.
Would increasing their intelligence to human level change this mind set?
Would they start thinking competetively rather then as best friends ?
But IMO it would be nice to have superdogs but not necessarily of the same intelligence as us.
Neither. They’re feeling threatened.
Depends on your definition of “intellect,” maybe. When my dogs are smelling something I’m completely ignorant of it. If it’s a threat, they take pains to impress upon me that they’ve detected a threat, because they can tell I’m completely unaware of it. In general, my reactions to some kinds of danger probably make my dogs pity my mental capacity.
As far as “minds” go, however, it’s more correct IMHO to say dogs and humans have co-evolved to be more successful together than either was apart. Studies have claimed that dogs are uniquely good at reading human gestures and facial expressions. We’re not yet at the level of symbiosis, but perhaps mutualism. We may no longer need dogs as much as we once did to thrive, but that development was very, very recent (like since the 1930s, maybe?) and may not stand the test of time (in post-oil society we might need dogs more than we now do, for example). We are in this together, for better or worse.
This may just be me but were I a dog and suddenly “blessed” with human intelligence, I’d take one look at the idiots around me and take to the woods. I guarantee you the local animal control cops wouldn’t get near me on my way out. Woof!
This. They’ll kick our asses.
Besides, I’ve met some people that were not too sharp. So dogs are already smarter than some humans I’ve met. :eek:
We work, they sleep. We feed them, they hang out doing nothing. And sleep. We worry, they don’t. We work for them already.
So who is smarter?