Science Reveals Why Your Dog Can Hear A Cheese Wrapper Opening From A Mile Away

I have a confession to make. When I got my Shiba, I was convinced he hated me. So, I bribed him to like me. I bribed him with one of my favorite things: cheese. I have this really bad, but really delicious, habit of eating cheese in the middle of the night. I'm an insomniac, so I get a little peckish around 12:30 am. I started sharing my midnight cheese binges with Buttons. Of course, it worked and now he's head over paws in ruv with me, but I didn't know that I was also turning him into a Monteray Jack addict. I'm not alone. Thousands of dog parents feed their pups cheese. We do so as a high value treat or as a sneaky way to give them medicine. Recently, the University of Michigan discovered that cheese is as addictive as cocaine. I KNOW!! CRAZY!! Cheese contains a protein called casein. Something crazy happens to the protein when your body breaks it down: it releases a whole lot of opiates called casomorphins. These casomorphins trigger the parts of your brain that deal with pain, reward and addiction. It's so addictive that Neal Barnard, MD, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, says:

Casomorphins attach to the brain’s opiate receptors to cause a calming effect in much the same way heroin and morphine do. “In fact, since cheese is processed to express out all the liquid, it’s an incredibly concentrated source of casomorphins. You might call it dairy crack.

That's right, we've all be feeding our dogs crack, dairy crack. But this delicious "drug" won't hurt us or our dogs, if we consume it in moderation, of course. But, at least now you know why you can't open a cheese wrapper without a dog coming out of nowhere to steal that yummy casein filled goodness from you. Bonus fact: Did you know that there's a cheese called Chocolate Lab? Feature image via @andreaardendogtraining.h/t Mic.