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 a 23 mile leg of the race with him. At the end of the day, the dog joined Leonard in his tent. Ultimately, Gobi ran 77 miles of the 155 mile race. In Stage III, Leonard carried Gobi several times through water barriers. Gobi did not run Stages IV and V of the run, as the race had entered the desert where temperatures exceeded 52 °C. 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 dogs. 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 announced the expected publication of a trilogy of books about Gobi's and Leonard's journey together. The book titled Finding Gobi, received favourable 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 book for adults is now available in 21 languages: English, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Italian, Japanese, German, Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Chinese Traditional, Korean, French, Vietnamese, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovene and Russian. A young adult edition and a children's picture book was also released in 2017. The young adult edition book won the 2017 New York CityBig Book Award. On March 13, 2017, Twentieth Century Fox announced that it is developing a movie based on Dion Leonard and Gobi's extensive journey together. The podcast This is Love covered Dion and Gobi's story in their episode, "Gobi."
Awards
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.
