Cub Scouts March 2009

Here are some photos that we took of our Cub Scouts group. We are over the Bears which is the 9 year olds. They are a lot of fun. This last month was on choosing a career and we talked about Mat's job as a graphic designer (no pictures but the boys had fun looking at Mat distort his face using tools in photoshop and indesign), as well as going to a family in a ward that does Exotic Bird Rescue. It is really cool. They told us a lot about birds and if the boys want a bird to do their homework and read a lot about the birds and what they need and how to take care of them. A lot of the birds that they get have been abused and it is really sad. I got a couple of pictures of the boys holding two of the 6 birds that they showed us that they had in their home. They had a great time. The next Mat was so excited to do. Our friend, Officer Jay Hurst came and talked to the boys about his job as a K9 officer and what his job entails. He brought his dog Endy which is not a German Shephard, but is from Czechslovikia and was 18 months old when brought to be trained. He is such a beautiful dog and very intimidating but a sweet dog. Mat was used as a volunteer in a couple of ways. To show us part of what they do in training the dogs they have a toy scented in 4 kinds of drugs, marijiuana, meth, heroine, and cocaine. They use the toys as a reward for the dogs once they have found the drugs. So Mat was volunteered to hide the drug, marijiuana on the stage and Endy was to find it. Endy found it quite quickly and was rewarded with the toy which he and Officer Hurst were playing with. Then Mat was also volunteered to put on this suit that weighed 60lbs. The suit is used to train in the dogs in biting a suspect when the dog feels threatened and to protect their master as well as keeping the suspect there. Mat put the suit on that makes him look like a sumo wrestler because he could hardly walk or lift up his arms. While I was taking the pictures I think I was more scared than Mat, who, if you look closely in the pictures, is smiling and really enjoying himself get attacked by Endy. I'm just glad that it was him and not me. It was fun to see the boys so involved and throughly enjoying every minute of it. Hope you enjoy the pictures. We sure enjoyed being there and learning more about these different jobs.