Costco muffins are dog crack

What the frak are they putting in those Costco muffins? Whatever it is, Pippi finds it abso-frakin-lutely irresistible.

Now that may not seem all that unusual, but you have to understand that Pippi is probably the best-behaved dog ever when it comes to food impulses and behavior: she doesn't beg and under normal circumstances doesn't counter-surf. I can sit on the couch and eat over my lap something as seemingly irresistible as a salmon burger, and she'll lie politely at her end of the couch without so much as sniffing my way. (And believe me, she absolutely loves salmon.) We can even set our dishes down on the coffee table, with food on them, and she won't disturb them. She sits to receive her own food and won't eat unless she has sat and then been told "OK." (We get some of the credit for this, but I think we lucked out in terms of her eager-to-please and quick-to-learn personality.)

But when it comes to the Costco muffins, we have to guard them with our lives. Her one instance of counter-surfing came in the first weeks we had her and involved a lemon-poppy seed muffin which she managed to get out of the still partially plastic-covered tray and then devoured in seconds. And then last night, Bullock left the mere wrapper from his just eaten blueberry muffin on his plate on the coffee table, and the second we got up from the couch, she snatched it from the plate. I had to pry her mouth open to fish it out. (We haven't worked on "drop it" yet, though I was repeating the phrase as I forced her mouth open, hoping she'd start to pick it up.) Thank god she's a gentle soul who lets me pry around in her mouth like that.

Seriously, what's in those things? Why does Pippi have such an uncontrollable impulse for them? It's a little troubling!