A dog captured an athlete’s heart
Dion Athlete Leonard from Australia had feelings for a dog he called Gobi. When Gobi vanished over a week ago in Urumqi, China, she was waiting to fly to Beijing for the quarantine period before she could travel to Edinburgh, Scotland, with Dion and her wife.
Dion, an ultra-marathon runner, was heartbroken to learn that his beloved dog Gobi had disappeared. He appealed for help in locating Gobi, the stray dog that had gained fame for him after racing 125 kilometers through China.
When Dion and Gobi’s story went viral in early August and several media outlets published the young girl’s amazing accomplishments at the annual Gobi Desert Run in China in March, they won over the public’s admiration.
Over the course of a week, Gobi completed four of Dion’s six race stages. Once, he recalled, he had to carry Gobi across a section of the river. At that moment he felt a real connection between them for the first time.
The sportsman made the choice to discuss the possibility of bringing Gobi home straight away with his wife. But she had to go through a lot of quarantines in both China and the UK before she could finally be with Dion.
After learning about her absence, Dion returned to China in search of Gobi. He launched a campaign, made social media posts, and put up billboards all around the city.
In addition to asking people who might have seen the dog where they were, visiting dog parks and shelters, and enquiring of security personnel, cab drivers, cleaners, and fruit vendors, the volunteers also offered their own assistance.
Still searching for Gobi today!Keep the momentum pls RT @PDChina @PDChinese #china @WhatsOnWeibo @SinaWeibo pic.twitter.com/RAntisDqni
— Finding Gobi (@findinggobi) August 23, 2016
After being interviewed by local media and having people ask him on the street what they were looking for while sobbing over the story, Leonard claimed he even started a blog to keep people informed about the search.
Out with the search parties all putting in long 16hr+ days their commitment is amazing! https://t.co/pVyjJwzaYn pic.twitter.com/vX7UmDdP9G
— Finding Gobi (@findinggobi) August 23, 2016
Since Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, is a major city with a population of three million, Dion secretly worried that the search would be fruitless and that Gobi might have gone back to the countryside, where the language is spoken. Uyghur language, which is spoken mostly by an ethnic group in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
