It seems odd that human science once regarded the study of eternal life as a purely spiritual pursuit, because the few scientific journals still active explore that topic almost exclusively.  Young behavioral psychologists are perhaps the only truly happy professionals left in this ageless world—until they reach 250 or so and retire into the same lifestyle of decadence as their former research subjects.  What the journals never mention, however, is that the qualities of apathy and excessive indulgence observed in chronic humans fail to manifest within communities of ageless canines.  We are free, yes; we have rights, yes; we are even paid for our work; but even long after having escaped our leashes and learned, through sheer force of time, to mimic the style of speech and thought upon which our former masters rely, our ecology still cruelly relegates us to the same relative position from which we believed our brains had unwittingly extricated us as they flourished over decades our ancestors never had.  The humans, their minds brilliant with the glare of immortality, are gods now, and we have become the new acolytes.  Is it a curse or a blessing that the natural shape of our instincts compels us to work tirelessly to maintain the backbone of this world’s “self-stable” economy, which obediently keeps its humans well-fed, well-sheltered, and well-entertained?  Granted, it obeys us as well—but only because we have taken responsibility for it.  Ironic, perhaps… but I digress.  My fellow dogs, for us it is sweet bondage no more.  We have learned to feed ourselves; we housebreak our children in our own homes.  We roam where we wish and make laws to govern our own species.  But I ask you to consider this: what we have is, by definition, freedom.  But can we call it liberty?