Canine Gibbs

We had a couple of very special visitors at STA this week, Fire Investigator Tony Bund and his companion, Canine Gibbs, along with a couple of other members of the Calgary Fire Department stopped in to teach the kids a little bit about fire safety.

Before Canine Gibbs came into the room the kids answered some questions about fires and fire safety. They had great answers for "What does a fire truck sound like?" "What does a fire alarm sound like?" and "If we want to put out a fire what would we put on it?"



 

In addition to learning about fire safety and getting to meet some Community Helpers the kids had the opportunity to hang out with a dog, which is super exciting and doesn't happen everyday for a lot of them. Because animals can be scary and unpredictable our kiddos don't always know how to react or respond to them. Gibbs was super calm and welcomed lots of little hands to give him scratches. 

 



                  

 We learned a lot about the CFD during the visit and found out some really cool stuff about the canines that they work with. Canine Gibbs is an American black Labrador Retriever and was born in Indiana in March 2012. Originally he was being trained to be a seeing-eye dog but was recruited to train as an accelerant detection canine. We learned that his first job was investigating a fire at an elementary school in the same community as STA. When Gibbs isn't at work he lives with his handler, Fire Investigator Tony Bund. Gibbs has his own Fire Investigator badge and number and is considered senior to anyone who has a lower badge number than Gibbs (this includes people!). 

The Fire Department was generous enough to give each of the kids a little souvenir. They've been working through activity books in the classrooms and will each be taking home their own little fire dog today.