Gobi (dog)
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Gobi is a small, female Chihuahua mix that began following
ultra marathon An ultramarathon, also called ultra distance or ultra running, is any footrace longer than the traditional marathon length of . Various distances are raced competitively, from the shortest common ultramarathon of to over . 50k and 100k are bot ...
runner
Dion Leonard Dion Leonard (born Sydney, Australia, 2 January 1975) is an Australian/British endurance athlete and ultramarathon runner, motivational speaker, and author of New York Times Bestseller ''Finding Gobi'', the non-fiction memoir of his story of his ...
at the beginning of Stage II of the
Gobi Desert The Gobi Desert (Chinese: 戈壁 (沙漠), Mongolian: Говь (ᠭᠣᠪᠢ)) () is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia, and is the sixth largest desert in the world. Geography The Gobi measures from southwest to northeast an ...
Run in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in June 2016.


2016 Gobi Desert Run

On day one of the week long 155 mile desert race across the Gobi Desert a stray dog joined runners and completed 18 miles of the stage. Leonard noticed the stray dog at the start of the second day of the race. He did not expect the dog to follow him. The dog ran the 25
mile The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English ...
second stage of the race with him. At the end of the day, the dog joined Leonard in his tent. On Day three the dog ran the 26 mile stage and would receive the name Gobi from the desert the race was held. During stage three, Leonard carried Gobi several times through water barriers. Gobi did not run Stages four and five of the run, as the race had entered the desert where temperatures exceeded 52°C. Gobi completed the final 8 mile stage with Leonard to finish the race with him. Ultimately, Gobi ran 77 miles of the 155 mile race. After finishing the race, Leonard began a crowd funding campaign to raise £5,000 to bring Gobi back to Edinburgh from China. The campaign ultimately raised over £38,000. Leonard and his wife Lucja committed to donate the extra funds to welfare organizations that care for
stray dog A free-ranging dog is a dog that is not confined to a yard or house. Free-ranging dogs include street dogs, village dogs, stray dogs, feral dogs, etc., and may be owned or unowned. The global dog population is estimated to be 900 million, of w ...
s. Before Gobi could begin the quarantine process necessary to enter the UK, Leonard left Gobi in the care of race organisers in Urumqi, while he flew back to the UK to arrange for a leave of absence from his job in Edinburgh. While Leonard was in Edinburgh Gobi went missing, so Leonard immediately flew back to Urumqi, a city of three million people, to find her. With a search party made up of volunteers, Leonard combed the city with reward flyers and social media until the dog was found. Gobi had a deep gash on her head and was limping, but was otherwise unharmed. Leonard used some of the crowd funding money to fly Gobi to Beijing for an operation on her hip, from which she recovered. Leonard has now brought Gobi home to Edinburgh after the four month quarantine in Beijing required by UK law for unregistered strays was completed by January 5, 2017.


Media and Publications

In October 2016,
HarperCollins Publishers HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp ...
announced the expected publication of a trilogy of books about Gobi's and Leonard's journey together. The book titled ''Finding Gobi'', received favourabl
high praise in Publishers Weekly
and other reviews. The paperback version was officially launched in the US on June 1, 2017, and went onto become a New York Times Bestseller at number 3. The hardback version was released in the UK, Australia and New Zealand on June 13, 2017, reaching The Sunday Times Bestseller List. This was followed by a paperback version later released in February 2018 also reaching The Sunday Times Bestseller List. The main edition version is now available in 24 languages: English, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Italian, Japanese, German, Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Chinese Traditional, Korean, French, Vietnamese, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovene, Russian, Serbian, Romanian and Czech. A chapter book edition for young adults and a children's picture book was also released in 2017. The young adult edition book won the 2017 New York City Big Book Award. In June 2020, the podcast '' This is Love'' covered Dion and Gobi's story in their episode, "Gobi." On March 13, 2017, Twentieth Century Fox announced that it was developing a movie based on Dion Leonard and Gobi's extensive journey together. On February 20, 2021 it was announced that
Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio Conglomerate (company), conglom ...
and Tencent Films had purchased the rights from Fox to now make the movie.


Awards and Notable Accolades

In June 2017, Gobi was invited with Leonard to present Gold Duke of Edinburgh Awards at Holyrood Palace alongside
Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar, (Edward Antony Richard Louis; born 10 March 1964) is a member of the British royal family. He is the youngest child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the youngest sibl ...
. In September 2017, Gobi won the Inspiring Animal Hero Award held at the Grosvenor Hotel in London. The Animal Hero Awards recognise and celebrate the most inspiring examples of bravery, dedication and resilience in the animal world. In September 2019, Gobi was invited with Leonard by the President of Slovenia to the Open Gala Day to speak to invited guests about their story of Finding Gobi. In June 2020, Gobi won the Shining World Marathon Award from the Supreme Master Ching Hai. The award recognises Gobi's heroic and noble example of unconditional selfless love to humankind. In December 2020, Gobi won the Dog Of The Year award in a special feature television program named Dogs Of The Year broadcast by The CW network. Gobi's story was number 1 of the 10 dogs featured. In September 2023, Leonard received an award at the 26th Fervent Global Love of Lives for his story with Gobi. As part of the event Leonard was invited to meet Tsai Ing-wen.


References

{{reflist Individual dogs Individual animals in China 2016 in China Individual animals in Scotland Feral dogs