With apologies to the Donald for a great title...
Disclaimer:On advice of counsel (Betty), I must point out that to the best of our knowledge, the good folks at McDonald's (their registered trademark, not mine, not used with permission or intent to confuse anybody, anyhow, anywhere) I state for the record that to the best of my extant knowledge, they (McDonald's) use no illicit addictive substances (by way of example and not limitation: heroin, crack cocaine or nicotine) in their products.
Background:The dog
has to ride in the back quarters of the Tardis and, especially after a long day's drive, it's not always easy to convince 65 pounds of wiggly hound-mix he wants to climb into the hound-zone. To that end, we used to be able to proffer a dog biscuit to get him to step back there without any auxiliary pushing and shoving. This failed after the first day's travel. We then had success with a human-grade-but-sold-for-dogs buffalo jerky treat product. Three days in, this was no longer a good inducement (the Donald learns quickly, so does the dog). We briefly had success with the remnants of a 9$ (really good) burger from
Jakers in Twin Falls. After a couple of unethusiastic boardings (consumption of the proffered bribe is never a slow process), this too lost efficacy.
I told Betty that, in my experience, McDonald's food has an addictive (see Disclaimer,
supra) quality that might work for the hound. She seemed dubious at my representation that the double cheeseburger (with which I'm familiar) would prove long-term irresistible.
Our first attempt was a double bust. We went to the
McDonald's in West Yellowstone, only to discover that:
A) The staff (like much of the service staff in the whole city of West Yellowstone) was distant yet unfriendly.
B) Betty reported there was no such thing as a "dollar menu" at this McDonald's location.
C) It was too early for any burger products (
ca. 1000 hours local time).
D) The lowest priced available item was a disgustingly wilted sausage product on a cardboard (?) bun/biscuit thingie.
This tragically fetid, yet costly (3+$) product didn't work out of the box.
Undaunted, we moved on to Jackson, WY. While the dollar menu at the Jackson McDonald's has changed of recent (see, for example
this article), there's still a cheeseburger (not the traditional 1$ double favoured by the hung-over set) for $1.09 with that scent that stimulates some bizarre serotonin-like brain chemistry in humans, at least.
With this new bait in hand, we proffer a small segment of burger to the recalcitrant hound only to be chuffed as he loaded himself handily in the Tardis for takeoff. Subsequent events have only reenforced the observed addictive qualities. Now, whenever the hound sees Betty near the cooler in the back, he pulls for the back of the Rav4 with impressive force. He now jumps in without even being told to do so.
We're happy, the good folks at McDonald's should be happy they're selling product and that dogs are evidencing the same cravings for their products they've engineered for humans. As the Donald might say, were such tiny amounts worthy of his attention, we gots us a win-win here.
