There is no way another animal on earth could catch up unless we somehow bred it and taught it. Generally we only do that in order to get a service of some kind. The only animal that could conceivably be useful is the chimpanzee, or perhaps another member of the ape family. You need fingers with opposable thumbs in order to be able to do anything useful.
Whatever animal it was would have to learn how to use symbols to communicate with. That would take a long time, I think. So far, I think we’ve got chimps to use fewer than 500 symbols. Not enough to be considered intelligent.
I have no idea how to put a date on a time when them might know 20,000 symbols. Maybe if we find a way to mechanically enhance their computing power. Let’s say we develop a program that does that in the next 50 years. So we’ve got these chimps with metal brains attached to their heads (more to let folks know they are enhanced than because it would be hard to implant the computing power inside their heads).
So now we’ve got these chimps with the intelligence of toddlers. And the animal rights people want to liberate them and give them voting rights. The chimps, meanwhile, only want to go to amusement parks, where they climb around on the roller coasters. Also they have fornication problems. Often they attempt to copulate with the female human animal rights advocates.
This causes great consternation, as the women are not at all sure they want these “boys” voting now. The female chimps are smarter than that, and they keep trying to escape, to set up their own civilization.
Anyway, when the comet hits earth, none of it really matters.