Every day, I wake up and a new sci-fi fever dream becomes reality.

As this TechCrunch report indicates, the market for good war dogs is apparently very broad:

Colossal Biosciences' Ben Lamm and [Anduril's] Palmer Luckey had an idea to genetically engineer war dogs for the U.S. military, law enforcement, and other emergency response teams. That idea, on Thursday, announced its emergence from stealth as Warhound, armed with $200 million in funding from investors including In-Q-Tel, Sequoia, and 8VC. The round values the company at $1.2 billion.

Here's an artistic interpretation of how Warhound imagines these hounds will look outfitted for war:

As TechCrunch notes, there is a "dwindling supply of working dogs" available to handle vital military tasks including "bomb detection, searches, and other specialized operations."

Most importantly, the U.S. has become "increasingly reliant on foreign nations for dogs that play an important role in the U.S. military and in law enforcement."

Co-founder Ben Lamm found through research that many war dogs flunk out of war school due to genetic predispositions, so genetic engineering could address that problem:

Lamm believed dogs could be enhanced for health, longevity, and "for things like speed and agility or enhance olfactory sensors for bomb sniffing and whatnot," he said. His team looked at the top-performing working dog breeds — the Belgian Malinois and German Shepherd — taking the cell lines from them and putting them in a biobank. From there, they will edit the genes, adding the ones that will make the dogs perform better while taking out the ones that won't, to create "a new type of dog."
[Anduril], meanwhile, will provide software and hardware enhancement for items such as dog protection vests and eye goggles to assist the dogs and their handlers with matters like situational awareness and coordination.

Basically a canine cyborg.

(This is fine. I'm sure this will be fine. 😭)

Ben Lamm's Colossal Biosciences has also been attempting to bring the dodo back from extinction, a long-sought-after goal of tech genetics.

The company is working with the American Humane Society in its training program, and the "first batch of dogs is about to be cloned and incubated and is expected to be born early next year, ideally entering service within the next two years."