Poppy and Crocus

Meet Moe's new pets--the bold and boisterous Miss Poppy, and the shy but sweet Miss Crocus. Moe is soon-to-be competing in earthdog, so we had to get a pair of mice (ok, ok, they're rats, but it makes me feel better to call them mice) for his training. We got them out of their cage for the first time tonight for some playtime. They're actually pretty tame. I've been kind of worried because they hide everytime I come in the room, but once we fished them out of their little igloo they seemed pretty happy to see us.

It was funny, after we were done we put them back into their cage and went to wash our hands. Then I went back to refill their water bowl and I noticed that they were cleaning themselves too--just washing off the human cooties I'm sure. ;)

But I love to watch their little movements. Their hands are so tiny and delicate, and they can almost spin their little torsos all the way around to clean their backs. They're almost like tiny cats.

I'm a little worried about how they'll react when we put them in the training cage for Moe. The cage completely protects the mice, and everything I've read says that the mice don't even really pay attention to the dog. Despite all that, a little voice inside my head is still saying, "What the hell am I going to do if they freak out?" I kind of like the wee ladies, I can't fathom scaring them on purpose.

Sweet Husband's been down with the plauge--aka a horrific chest cold--and I've been playing good-student-studying-for-the-bar so we haven't had time to finish constructing the training cage and tunnel. Hopefully sometime this weekend all questions will be answered.