Nine-year-old gets letter from President-Elect Obama

Nine-year-old Karina Encarnacion wrote to Mr. Obama and made a few suggestions about how to make the world a better place.
Karina suggested a law requiring people to recycle and a ban on unnecessary wars. Then this confident child suggested her choice for the first families, first puppy.

"President Obama, you should get a Coton De Tulear because they are hypo-allergenic and they're very soft and they don't shed, Karina said."

Karina's dog Murphy, a Coton De Tulear showed us how he could sit, speak, roll over, shake, and even dance! He's one year old and weighs 20 pounds.

When the letter first arrived mom Cindy explained, "My hands were shaking as I was opening the envelop."

Karina said, "He told me I should try to make a difference everywhere I go and to get up every time I'm knocked down and to look out for other people even if it doesn't benefit me."

The President-Elect encouraged Karina to look up the word "empathy" because he told her the world does not have enough empathy. He said it was up to her generation to change that.

Karina looked it up and explained, "It means great affection for somebody else and you can see a situation from that person's point of view."

Karina's dad is a geologist at St. Louis University. He studies rocks and minerals and always has a hand lens near by. He wanted to make sure the President Elect's signature was hand written and not some generic stamp. So he took out his lens, with 20x magnification and determined it was handwritten in blue ink.

The Encarnacion's believe words matter, words can inspire, and the words of a future President just made a difference in one young girl's life.

• To learn more about Coton De Tulear click here