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Ender makes us happy no matter how we feel. I have to say, I don't think I've felt as
much like a kid in, you know, since I actually was a kid, since, you know, we got Ender.
We got him when he was literally like an infant -- he was 8 weeks old. And so, he just -- he
has a constant need to sort of mess around and be silly, and so that brings that out
in us. It's like a whole new chance to be a kid again and run around and rough and tumble
and make funny noises. It's a lot of fun. His favorite toys tend to be toys that we
paid nothing for or that he's found on the street, versus the toys that we spend a lot
of money on. He does love this toy: It's sort of like a large cone that has a hole in it,
and it's weighted on the bottom, and we feed him every meal in this. It's -- he can knock
it over and it pops back up, and there's a small hole and the food comes out. And so
he's really learned a lot about how to manipulate the toy and sort of swing his paw around so
that the toy will knock food out. That's definitely one of his favorite toys. Makes mealtime last
a lot longer, and it's also good for his mental, mental capacity-building. Besides that, his
favorite toy is probably a plastic bottle. We get these bottle of fizzy water, and when
the water's gone, we just take the cap off and give it to Ender, and he'll play with
it for longer than he plays with any other toy. He likes to sort of knock it around for
awhile, and then he'll just take it his bed with him and sit down chew on it until it's
sort of destroyed. He also likes our clothes. Our clothing is probably his third favorite
toy. He always steals our T-shirts. He's taken a number of Paul's white T-shirts. And finally,
we just decided that we give him one of his own so that we don't have to take them back
every time. So, those are probably his favorite toys. We were really excited to get a dog.
I was particularly excited to get a dog. My boyfriend was willing to consider it. Of course,
we got there and, I mean, a puppy is a puppy. He was just absolutely precious. When we got
there, we saw that he was the runt of the litter, and he had shorter hair than the other
dogs, so we thought maybe he'd be less of a mess. And he was just very calm. So we thought
he might be just sort of one of the calmer dogs. This is our first dog, and so we were
hoping to get a dog that wouldn't be too much of a challenge. Did not succeed. But we love
him in spite of the fact that he is a challenge, everyday. Well, we actually named him Ender
for a reason. Ender is a character in the book Ender's Game, which is sort of a sci-fi
novel about a boy who saves the world. And it was my boyfriend's favorite book when he
was growing up. And so when we thought of a hundred names to name him, and when we came
to that name, Paul liked it because it reminded him of sort of his childhood and this book.
And I just thought it sounded like a great name. And then I read the book, and I realized
he's a perfect representation of the boy in the book as a character, because he is loving
and sweet, but he has this power in him that he doesn't even recognize is there. And so
he's jumping up on people constantly. And, you know, sometimes he'll nip when he's playing
and he doesn't realize. Sometimes he does it harder than he means to. But he's nothing
but full of love, but, you know, he has this extra sort of energy and power. I love him
to death. He is one of, I mean, he's one of the most important living things in my life.
He is definitely one of my best buddies. We play to together constantly. Ender is incredibly
high energy. We found out after we adopted him, and did a bred test, that he is part
Terrier, which means he is part crazy. And so, we play in every way you can think of.
We do a lot of running. So every time we walk, we probably, I would say a quarter of that,
we try and run with him. He likes to put the leash in his mouth and just run along side
us. We take him to the park, we take him to the beach, we take him -- we try to take him
wherever we go on the weekends. And we do a lot of hiking with him. We do a lot of training
too, which may not seem like play, but because he's such a smart dog, he has to have kinds
of play that occupy his mind as well as get his energy out physically. We taught him to
do a high five. And we taught him to touch, to target our hand. And we taught him to shake.
And he's a really smart dog, so he reminds us to play by messing with things that he
shouldn't be messing with. That's his way of saying, you know, "Guys, I'm a little bit
bored, and I need some stimulation." If we're in our room, he'll just start like, sort of,
surfing on the surfaces with his nose to try and find something to take off of there and
eat, and then we know it's time to give him some attention and get him running around
and playing. We have often had discussions about who Ender loves more, me or my boyfriend.
They're dogs, and so they don't -- you know, they do pick favorites. And I really think
that he loves Paul the most. Although I do know he loves me, I do think he loves Paul
the most. And it might be because of the fact that I'm with him all the time, and so it's
really special when Paul comes home. It's something that's different. And so, we have
watched those videos before of people coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan from after
being away for 6 months. And the dogs run out of the house, and they just go ballistic.
They go crazy, they're jumping, they don't know what to do with their mouth. They fall
over on their back, they're belly's up, they're wagging their tail. They're jumping around.
And Ender does that almost every single day when Paul gets home. And it is just the most
precious thing to watch. It makes Paul happy. It makes me happy to watch it. He just got
all of this -- he's full of life. And he's just so excited. Whenever people meet him,
they say he's a happy puppy, and that he's just filled with joy.