Augmented Pets of the Future

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Option X

8 min readOct 13, 2018

The artificial selection humans have conducted over millennia to transform wolves into tail-wagging, slobbery dogs and wildcats into overlord, sometimes-nice cats may well be reaching its next phase.

Personal drones (PDs) as possible pets will be discussed in an upcoming article. There is, of course, myriad other autonomous robotic bodies that could serve as pet placeholders in the future. But for now, let’s consider autonomous biological bodies that have traditionally served as pets, namely dogs and cats, with a variety of augmentations.

The two umbrellas of augmentation we’ll consider are: psychological (behavioural alterations) and physical (bodily alterations).

Now, how might these alterations (or augmentations, since they’re presumably meant to be improvements rather than mere changes) differ from the aforementioned artificial selection? In order to look into the future, let’s first look into the past.

Past Methods of Selection

So far, humans have opted for sweeter personalities that, in effect, retain puppy-like behaviour in adult dogs, and side-effect physical changes like floppy ears, curled-up tails, and a variety of fur colorations that come with domestication. Of course, humans didn’t only select (whether the selection was deliberate or not hardly matters) for cuteness. Much is to be said about the concept of “Man’s Best Friend.”

A friend is not a friend simply because said friend is cute. Although, that may happen as well. A friend is generally someone with whom there is a mutual bond that, as is implied by mutuality, entails two-sidedness rather than one-sidedness. This means there is an understanding shared between the two parties. A common language. Primarily, it is body language and, secondarily, verbal language.

Dogs, for example, are known to utilize what’s called “left gaze bias” when they’re interacting with us. That means they’ll look left towards the right side of the human face, which is the more expressive side, in order to better understand the human in question.

As another example, dogs understand the gesture of pointing, whereby the index finger beams an imaginary line meant to be visually followed towards a nearby or distant destination. Now that’s some cognitive magic right there. And, for your information, it’s one that is entirely exclusive to humans (not even our ape cousins understand it). Except for… dogs. They managed to crack that cognitive code to gain membership into our exclusive little club. Of course, they can’t point with their paws, but some dogs can be trained to, in a way, indicate direction with their noses and stance. Ever heard of the breed, Pointer? Well, pointers aren’t the only breed of dog capable of this, but they were certainly bred and named for it. This type of pointing on their end is debatable, so let’s not get into it in this article.

Instead, let’s focus on dogs’ rather unquestionable understanding of what is meant by our pointing. Wolves are incapable of deciphering what is meant by an outstretched arm and extended index finger. They probably fail to notice it in the first place. Even Cesar Millan wouldn’t be able to guide a wolf into wrapping its mind around the concept. It’s genetically out of reach. Dogs, however, on a genetic level, have become predisposed to understanding human language. And they’ll easily know you’re pointing to something outside of you, be it a positive destination like food or a toy, or a negative destination like an “accident” in the house or chewed up shoes. Their gaze will land on what you’re pointing to and they’ll react accordingly. Not only this, researchers have determined that they can even follow your gaze sans finger! So you can effectively point with your eyes and a dog will know to look where you’re looking.

There’s so much to be said about the unique traits of dogs, and of cats, that exist today. Let’s, however, delve into some future-casting.

(So far, this article has focused more on dogs. It will continue to do so. But cat lovers fear not! The majority of these musings on augmentations in dogs can also be applied to cats.)

So, how might we alter our furry friends further? Call it augmentation or biohacking, but artificial selection is about to get an upgrade.

Future Methods of Augmentation

Here are some augmentations that could become possible:

5 Behavioural Augmentations

1. Protection. More than ever before, dogs could become instinctive protectors of humans. These traits are already available at training facilities such as this one. But imagine if this type of training, and more, were to become part of the behavioural hardware (inborn by way of genetic engineering) rather than the software (acquired during post-birth development) of a protection dog.

2. Intuition. Dogs are already believed to detect people with bad intentions and demonstrate evident wariness of them. An augmentation in their emotional intelligence could make this a reality. Could a dog be used in court or as a lie detector?

3. Service. They could gain better abilities as service animals that, much like nurses, would demonstrate outstanding expertise in rehab for, say, patients learning to walk again after physical trauma.

4. Independence. They could take themselves on walks, use a specific route, and refuse contact with other dogs and humans. They could also relieve themselves only in designated areas.

5. Language. They could carry a thought interpreter that would be better than the one Dug had in Up! If they begin to possess increasingly complex cognition through augmentation, we’d interpret more than just “Squirrel!” and “Hey, I just met you and I love you.”

5 Physical Augmentations

1. Sense of smell. Many airports use dogs to detect explosive substances. This greatly speeds up the security process. Shoes can remain on and laptop bags unopened since a dog’s nose, capable of detecting parts per billion, easily pierces through them with what looks like a leisurely turn of its head. One might ask, technology is getting better, so why not develop a device that detects explosives much more effectively than a dog’s nose? That’s valid and might become possible. But we’re likely to figure out how to augment a dog’s sense of smell sooner than we figure out how to build a device from scratch. That’s simply because it’s tougher to build something from scratch (like reinventing the wheel) than it is to improve what’s already available to us, even before we fully understand the biology.

2. Hearing. Dogs already possess superhuman hearing. What if this ability is not only amplified, but also tuned to specific sounds like heart beat rhythms to detect and identify an oncoming stroke.

3. Fitness. They could become faster runners with steel-piercing teeth to, as an example, chase down runaway robots and deactivate them. Irish Wolfhounds were bred to topple wolves, leaving Ireland completely devoid of wolves. Rhodesian Ridgebacks were bred to face lions in South Africa. So, why not robots?

4. Material. We could improve a pet’s fur to make it softer, water-resistant (like feathers), and less susceptible to dirt.

5. Hybridity. I’m talking cydogs, as in, cyborg-dogs. Neural prosthetics would be an example of an external physical augmentation and neural lace an internal physical augmentation.

Here is one other, perhaps more farfetched (no pun intended), augmentation that could become possible:

1. Other than augmenting pets’ intelligence on the genetic level, we could also augment their smarts by way of integrating neural lace into their brains. But then one might question: “Are they understanding this? Or is the lace functioning on its own?” If all were to go well, pets would start thinking about their canine or feline conditions. “Why are we here?” they might ask. In effect, they’d become self-aware to a much deeper level than simply recognizing themselves in the mirror. Perhaps they could become literate and start writing down their philosophies. A Dogrates and Catistotle might emerge. On a more superficial level, they could finally take control of all “their” social media.

Implications of Augmentation

I want to leave you with this:

If we augment pets to the point of becoming self-aware and, as a result, true citizens of our society, then will they require rights akin to ours? Will we refrain from buying and selling them? Will they eventually revolt and demand that we abolish pet-hood as we abolished slavery? We seem to think there’s nothing wrong with owning a living being since, unlike slaves, these living beings are definitely okay with it. After all, they get food, a roof over their heads, and care. For the most part, they needn’t work for it in the slightest. What’s so wrong with that? We call them furry “friends” because friends are made by choice. But…whose choice was it?

The pet was sold or adopted into the hands of its owner, be the owner good or bad, and had no say in the matter. We like to think that, in an illustrious scene, a puppy ran up to us and chose us. It’s quite likely, however, that this impression was a product of our imagination. The puppy was simply playing and being curious. It had no idea this would cause it to be sold into our ownership. Yes, perhaps it was indeed drawn to us because our ancestors have selected, or augmented, it into loving us without basis, thereby stealing its “freedom” away from it. (I put freedom in quotations simply because many thought leaders argue about the definition of this term and whether or not it can truly exist.)

So, perhaps this is the greatest violation of one’s rights to life and liberty: enslaving a living being on the genetic level, whereby it cannot, no matter how hard it tried, free itself of us. Think about it. Sure, I may be devil’s advocate in this notion. After all, how can I say all these things when the “love” shared between humans and dogs/cats is one of life’s greatest gifts. It may well be so. But that doesn’t mean these points aren’t worth some careful consideration.

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Writing this article has also made me think about what pet augmentations might mean for the meat and dairy industry. We’ve already selected for faster growth, softer meat, and more milk production. What’s next? Mindless bodies to eliminate suffering or simply artificially grown meat? This is presumably preferable to continuing the mass suffering of animals grown for meat and dairy.

I’ll leave this for a future article in which I will also think about morality (“Is all this cruel?”) and the limitations & regulations that might come into existence as a result.

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Augmented Pets of the Future

Written by Katia Karpenko