Cleaning out the animal cages:

Yesterday for breakfast, Moodles and I made some honey wheat bread in the bread-maker.

• 1 1/8 c water
• 3 T honey
• 2 T vegetable oil
• 1 T molasses
• 1 T gluten
• 1 1/2 t yeast
• 1/3 t salt
• 3 c whole wheat flour

Add all ingredients to bread maker in order suggested by machine manufacturer. Set machine for light crust. Entertain bebe and goggie intermittently for 45 minutes watching the dough go 'round in circles. Go do something else for the other 2.5 hours... Sadly, bebe will only watch the dough for so long before she tries to figure out how to open the bread-maker and presses a bunch of buttons, resulting in the machine getting set for "pasta with medium crust".

Moodles greatly approved of the resulting bread, and nommed on "heel strips" all day long. She'd get about 1/2 way through each piece of bread before Maggie would interpret all the delighted bread-waving as an invitation come eat. There were crumbs EVERYWHERE in the bebe enclosure. If I find a musical toy with a bread crust in the battery compartment, I'll know how it happened.

Eventually, I had to take the bebe enclosure apart, shake off all the stuffed animals, and sweep, because Moodles was trying to "save" little bread balls in the corners. I felt rather like a zoo-keeper, cleaning out the lion cage. I transferred Moodles to her jumparoo, from which she supervised me with a grave countenance and violent bouncing. Maggie took notice of all the uneaten food while I was sweeping, and decided that the inside of the bebe enclosure was an untapped source of mana that she should harvest at the first opportunity. A few minutes later, I had the bebe changed and dressed, and the enclosure back together with the bebe inside. Maggie implimented her plan with all due haste, and found out almost immediately why Jasmine had declined to join her:

She had failed to realize that being inside a bebe enclosure would limit her ability to back up or turn around, while giving Moodles an unprecedented "reach advantage." And adding insult to injury, was the fact that there weren't even any treats in the enclosure anymore, because Maggie executed her plan right after I cleaned. Maggie is just lucky that she's a short haired pooch, or Moodles would have had her in corn-rows and bows by now. Jasmine and I sat at safe distance on the couch and laughed up our sleeves while Moodles stretched out Maggie's lips and drooled on her ears.

Despite being somewhat embarrassed over this mistake, I still managed to convince Maggie to clear all the crumbs out of the bebe enclosure this morning... But only if I took the bebe out first...