Hot dogs and K-9 dogs

After planning and attending this last Blue & Gold Banquet, I came to the realization that I'm going to be going to Pack Meetings for the rest of my life.  Okay, not quite.  But I seem to be spacing my boys far enough apart that none will overlap in the Cub Scout program.  Couple that with the fact that I am now serving in Cubs without a son in there yet, and I feel like Pack Meetings are going to be with me for a good long while.
Back to Blue & Gold.  For those who haven't been blessed with a Cub Scout, the Blue & Gold Banquet is celebrated every February to remember the birthday of Cub Scouting.  It is usually a dinner for the Cubs and their families.  As a committee, we try to make it a fun night and have it stand out from the other monthly Pack Meetings.
Our Pack is quite large, and when you add in their families, that is a lot of people to serve for dinner.  Our Bishopric has been extremely generous with our budget, but it still only goes so far when buying food.  So, every year we have our traditional hot dog dinner (with chips, drinks and dessert).  In years past, we have asked the Cubs to bring cubcakes, but I was so sick of cleaning up ground-in chocolate cake out of carpet scattered throughout the entire church, that I nixed that idea this year.  We went with donuts.  It was great!  A few sticky fingers, but nothing major.
Dinner was easy to plan since we have the same thing every year (and we eat picnic style with families bringing their own blankets to sit on).  The hard part is coming up with an idea for entertainment.  Maybe it's because I had dogs on my brain, but I thought it sounded like fun to have the Lehi Police Dept. K-9 unit do a demonstration for us.  I had a bit of a hard time getting hold of the right officer, but it worked out in the end.
We sent out an email earlier in the week saying that dinner would be served at 6:30 sharp and all food needed to be cleaned up by 6:55 so the dogs could come at 7.  Wow!  Everyone was on time.  I was worried that wouldn't be enough time to serve and eat, but we did it.  We placed a napkin, hot dog, donut and bag of chips on plates and had them ready to go on long tables.  People just had to choose their chips, pick up a plate, put their ketchup and mustard on their dog and go.  It worked out great.  We had everyone served in less than 5 minutes.  And all food was cleaned up by 6:55.
The boys anxiously awaited the dogs.  The officers arrived at 7 pm and set up their things.  We had Officer Smith, Officer Smith and Officer Larsen and their dogs come and talk to us.  It was so fascinating and fun.  I have never seen the boys so quiet and attentive in all my years in Primary and Cubs.  The dogs did some exercises for us (finding drugs, bombs and attacking).  Sorry the pictures are bad - gym picture never turn out well.  Also, the officers requested no video.

There were a lot of questions and the officers were so great with the boys.  Enoch asked if they took their dogs on walks (we are still having problems with Coal).  They said yes.  I asked if they would take my puppy and train her and give her back.  They laughed and said when they gave her back she would bite.  I replied that she already bites.

The dogs were very well behaved, but still large, loud and ferocious.  Most boys didn't seem scared or intimated, but a few made their way to the back of the room.

We were done and cleaned up by 8:30 pm.  The entire night was a success.  The only problem is how to top it next year!