What I mean is: instead of a "rat" evolving into primates and those tree hugging primate becoming bipedal great apes, imagine a "rat" evolving into a dog-like or cat-like animal, then that animal becoming a tree hugger, which then turns into a great upright-standing "canis homo sapiens."
In short, if tree climbing canine-like animals got the same environmental pressures that lead to human intelligence, what whould it look like? And could this have happened?