Finding Gobi: The true story of one little dog’s big journey. Dion Leonard

his leg again. Now the dog watched as he blew it up, then hopped up onto it as soon as Dion sat down.

      Shaking his head, Dion pulled out a packet of nuts and dried meat. You had to carry your own food too. He was about to pop a piece of meat in his mouth when he stopped.

      She was watching him intently. But she wasn’t begging. She hadn’t whimpered once, other than back at the creek. And as far as he knew, she hadn’t eaten anything all day.

      “Here you go,” he said, tossing the meat in front of her. She wolfed it down and wagged her tail. Then she turned around a few times and settled down. Within seconds she was snoring, fast asleep.

      “Great,” Dion muttered. “Just what I need, another roommate.” He was sharing the tent with several other runners, and three of them had stayed up all last night talking. Now he had the dog to deal with too. And she snored!

      But he couldn’t bring himself to shoo her away. She’d run hard the whole day, after all. He couldn’t blame her for being tired. And if some soft snores were the worst she did all night, well, he could live with that.

      

      he next morning, Dion smiled down at the little dog prancing around his feet. “You ready?” he asked. She barked in reply.

      She’d been curled up beside him when he woke up this morning. “You know what you’ve got to do now, don’t you?” Richard, one of the other runners, asked him.

      “What?” Dion replied.

      Richard had smiled. “You’ve got to give her a name.”

      Dion had groaned at that. She wasn’t his dog! But she did seem to have attached herself to him. And he couldn’t just keep thinking of her as “dog”. Richard was right. She needed a name. But what name?

      It should be short, he thought; long names just got shortened anyway. It should be fun and playful but not silly. It should suit her. And it should have something to do with the race, maybe.

      Then he had it. Part of this race led through the Gobi Desert. And that was the perfect name for her. Gobi.

      Gobi was excited. Now she had a name! And the man had given it to her! And he’d fed her and let her curl up beside him to sleep. This was so great!

      And now it was daytime again, the sun was out, and it was nice and warm, and they were about to run some more! She couldn’t wait!

      She was so excited she actually wandered away for a little bit. There were lots of other runners, and many of them said hi to her and petted her. Some even fed her or gave her water. It was really nice.

      But once the race got underway, Gobi went looking for one runner in particular. A tall one all in yellow. She found him after a little bit, and he smiled when he saw her.

      Then they started running together again.

      Dion was surprised at how happy he was to see Gobi return. He’d thought she’d got tired of him or found her owner, or something else. But here she was, running alongside him like she’d never left.

      Today’s race led through a bunch of boulders. The footing was tricky because the rocks shifted around beneath your feet. You had to be careful if you didn’t want to get hurt.

      Dion slowed a little as he reached the boulders. Gobi didn’t. She was light enough that she could leap from rock to rock without a problem.

      Julien was the same way. Dion had seen him leap from rock to rock the day before. Today Dion had made sure to be in front before they got to the boulders, because he knew he’d lose some time once they reached that section. Sure enough, he soon heard Julien coming up behind him.

      But when Dion got to the top of the pile, he stopped. He could see for miles from up here. There was the next checkpoint, way ahead, just past a small village. There was the starting line, way behind them. There was the path from here to the village – it was nice and flat and straight, and they’d been running on that until the markers had led them up here.

      And there was one runner, flying down another path.

      It was Tommy.

      “Whoa,” Julien said from beside Dion. “Not right.”

      When Dion reached the checkpoint, he stopped and found one of the race organisers. “Tommy somehow skipped that whole rocky section back there. I don’t know if he did it deliberately or not, but it’s not fair.”

      The woman raised her eyebrows. “We’ll look into it,” she said.

      Dion still wasn’t sure the organizer believed them, but he’d done all he could do. Time to get back in the race.

      Tommy was way ahead, but the race path curved a bit. At one point, he and Dion were maybe half a mile apart.

      Dion assumed Tommy had seen him and would slow down but Tommy continued running fast ahead and didn’t stop for Dion so that they could run together as they had before Tommy had gone another way.

      Dion tried to catch Tommy. The gap was too big, though. All that happened was that Dion wore himself out, and Julien shot past him.

      Dion was mad at himself. He’d had this problem before. He got angry, and then he got careless. During his first ultra race he’d got so angry he’d actually quit the race partway through. He was starting to feel that same way now. Usually his wife was there to help him get over his anger, but she was back in Scotland. Dion was all alone.

      Then he glanced down at Gobi, still running beside him. He smiled. No, he wasn’t alone. And having that little dog there was enough to take his mind off chasing Tommy down – and everything else. Just having Gobi with him was enough to keep Dion going.

      This race wasn’t over yet.

      

      obi was happy. The sky was clear, the weather was warm, the ground was firm beneath her feet, and she and the man were running together. From time to time he would look over at her and smile. The warmth of that smile was even brighter than the sun beating down on them, but in a good way. It filled Gobi up.

      Then she heard a strange rushing sound up ahead. What was that? Whatever it was, it was getting closer!

      Dion heard it before he saw it. It was the rapid beat of running water. He could tell from the noise that this wasn’t another creek. No, this was something a whole lot bigger and faster. Sure enough, as he topped the next rise, he spotted a broad expanse ahead. It was a river! Dion had no idea how deep it was, but the race markers led right across, so he had to assume he’d be able to make it across as well.

      With a sigh, he shifted his bag higher on to his back. All of his food was in there – if that got wet, he’d be in real trouble. Fortunately his clothes were made to dry quickly, and he