Have a small drink with the animals then some bread in the soup (7)

'have a small drink with' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.

'animals then some bread in the soup' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'animals' could be 'pets' (pet is a kind of animal) and 'pets' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'sip' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

'the' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?