BEIJING, Aug 26: A marathon runner in the UK who had run a race alongwith a companion stray dog in China was reunited with the canine after two months of massive search by volunteers here went viral on the internet.
Dion Leonard, an Australian extreme marathon runner from the UK, was reunited with the stray dog, Gobi, who had joined the ultra-marathoner on a race across China’s Gobi desert last month.
The pair were reunited on Wednesday in the regional capital of Urumqi after volunteers’ tireless efforts in searching for Gobi which went viral on the net finally paid off, state-run China Daily reported today.
After the race in June, 41-year-old Leonard decided to take Gobi back to his home in Edinburgh, Scotland.
He left her with caregivers in Urumqi until he could raise enough money to take Gobi to Britain.
On August 15, Leonard was told in a phone call that Gobi had been missing for a while.
Saddened by the news, he flew to Urumqi on Sunday, believing he could find her.
Since his arrival, an increasing number of volunteers had joined him in the search. They walked the streets handing out reward posters and responding to every possible sighting.
On Wednesday, Urumqi resident Ma Liangzhi spotted a dog similar to Gobi in a small restaurant close to where the animal had been cared for.
“I remembered seeing her on the reward posters, so I took her home and called the contact number,” Ma said.
Ma Ping, a volunteer, received Ma Liangzhi’s phone call on Wednesday evening. Although she didn’t want to raise Leonard’s hopes after all previous sightings ended in disappointment, she still asked him to take a look at the dog.
Gobi was overjoyed to see Leonard, wagging her tail hard and following him everywhere. “It’s her,” he said.
“Gobi jumped around him and wouldn’t let him go. Everyone was in tears,” Ma Ping said.
“She jumped on me ran around me. It was love again at immediate sight,” Leonard told BBC.
“It’s an absolute miracle and a story of love. I think Gobi may have gone off to search for Leonard. With all the people of Urumqi looking for Gobi, they were reunited,” Mary Peng, CEO and founder of the International Centre for Veterinary Services in Beijing who helped Leonard to find Gobi, told the Daily. (AGENCIES)
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