The snake-feeding bag

A lot of people feed their pet snake in a place other than the snake's normal enclosure. This prevents the snake from associating hands and opening cages with food. Some people have a specific feeding box or tupperware, but for smaller constrictors a really common method involves sticking the snake in a plain paper grocery bag with the food.

Since neither of my snakes is huge, this would be an ideal feeding method. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to keep a paper bag in the house for more than 30 seconds without it becoming occupied.

I'm pretty good at keeping the cats out of my gift wrap though. I hoard gift bags so that I can reuse them, and I have one that is exactly the right size and shape. It's nice a sturdy, and the top can be secured with a large chip clip. It's the most cheerful place I've ever tossed a warmed-over dead mouse.

My Cats are Stupid: Exhibit B

Every morning I wake up to a chorus of meowing and feed the cats. This is pretty easy to accomplish.

I usually give them more kibble than they can eat, so they can nibble on it later if they get hungry. When Evilcat is full she wanders off to lurk horribly elsewhere. When the Hellions are full, they attempt to bury their food.

It is very difficult to convince my poor, stupid cats that they do not need to bury their dishes for safekeeping. Anything movable on the table is likely to end up covering a cat dish. A total lack of things to drag around does not dissuade the Hellions even slightly. They will cheerfully continue to air-scratch around the dish until the inevitable happens...

Despite this happening on an almost daily basis, the Hellions have yet to learn that pretend-burying their food makes the food go away. This is also why I must keep Awesomedog's food allergies in mind when buying cat food.