Gobi | From This Is Love

0:15Speaker 1:Pushkin. Hey there, folks in podcast land.

0:20Speaker 2:Am I one of the folks in podcast land?

0:23Speaker 1:You're actually one of the people who create podcast land.

0:26Speaker 2:I'm a world maker.

0:28Speaker 3:Someone's got to be pulling those levers and keeping the assembly line going. If I haven't already said so, I'm Jonathan and.

0:36Speaker 1:I'm Kalila.

0:38Speaker 3:And we're here to tell you... I feel like we're about to launch into like an early 80s rap. And we're here to say, if you like Heavyweight, I think you might enjoy the podcast, This Is Love. It's from the makers of Criminal and hosted by Phoebe Judge. It's another narrative nonfiction podcast.

0:57Speaker 2:And they look at all kinds of love between people, sometimes not between people. This is an episode that's about a dog and a person.

1:07Speaker 4:Yeah.

1:07Speaker 2:It's just really cool. I've never heard a story quite like it before, and I think our audience will enjoy it as well.

1:13Speaker 3:So in June of 2016, Dion Leonard attempted one of the toughest races in the world, a 155-mile ultramarathon through the Gobi Desert in China. At the start of day two, he looked down and saw a little brown dog chewing on his shoes. Dion and the little dog were about to embark on an adventure that would change both of their lives.

1:36Speaker 5:Yeah.

1:37Speaker 3:As the listener, as a podcast listener, you're about to embark on an adventure that, would you say, I don't know, somewhat change your life?

1:44Speaker 1:Everything changes a life, right? It might, yeah.

1:47Speaker 2:You're about to embark on an adventure with them.

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1:50Speaker 2:We're going to be back with a new heavyweight next week. But we don't want to leave you contentless because we know how you get. When you say, where is my content?

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2:19Speaker 1:Enjoy the episode. Enjoy. But first, some words from our sponsors.

2:27Speaker 4:When Dion Leonard is training for a race, he says he sets up two large industrial heaters in his spare bedroom. He wears the warmest clothes he has and puts on a backpack loaded with 15 pounds of rice or sugar, and then he sets the treadmill incline as high as it can go and runs for hours. He does this to train himself to run ultramarathons in extreme conditions, like through China's Gobi Desert. In June of 2016, he took three flights and a long train ride from Edinburgh, Scotland, to a remote part of northwestern China. He says he remembers feeling exhausted before the race even started. The first day, he ran 25 miles. On the morning of day two, he was gearing up to run 25 more.

3:17Speaker 5:And I remember looking at my bag to make sure that everything's zipped up and the chest straps are done up tightly, and I'm looking down and making sure that I'm ready to go, and I look down, and I see this little dog chewing on my shoes. And I start to yell out to the hundred other runners at the race and the race organizers.

3:39Speaker 4:The dog was skinny and small, some kind of light brown terrier that didn't look like it had been bathed in a long time, that had skin problems, no collar. No one had any idea where the dog had come from. People said it had to be a stray. Dion was there to win a race, 155 miles over seven days, with your food and water and supplies on your back. One of the toughest races in the world. I just don't understand how you run for so long.

4:11Speaker 5:Well, I think sometimes I ask myself the same questions, to be honest.

4:15Speaker 4:Well, let's just say today is a Wednesday. How much will you run? Do you run every day?

4:21Speaker 5:Yeah, I probably run 10 to 20 miles most days. Obviously, sometimes work gets in the way, but yeah, I probably do 60 to 100 miles a week in training.

4:31Speaker 4:So you will run 10 to 20 miles today?

4:34Speaker 5:I'll do 10 today, but it's pretty wet and windy today, so yeah, maybe not.

4:39Speaker 4:What will be your pace for your mile today?

4:42Speaker 5:Between six, seven minute miles. So it won't take me very long to knock out 10 miles. It's pretty flat down here as well, so that helps.

4:52Speaker 4:At the end of day one of the ultramarathon in the Gobi Desert, Dion was in third place. He'd trained hard and was feeling confident that he could win the whole race. And then he looked down and saw some little dog biting at his shoe.

5:06Speaker 5:Like, whose dog is this? Someone come and get this damn dog away from me. And I love animals. It wasn't that at all. It was just I was focused on the race. I was focused on the day running ahead. And also the race was literally about to start. So I didn't want this dog to be trodden on. I didn't want to trip over it. So as I'm yelling this out, the race starting gun goes off and we're running down the road. And this dog's still on my leg as the other 100 runners start to form a line in front of me and take over. And here I am mid-pack. nearly last when I finally get this dog to get off my leg and I started to run and I hit the trail and I was running up some of the hills just before the big mountain pass and I heard it behind me a couple of times but I didn't think anything of it.

5:57Speaker 4:He ran through a forest and then the trail became steeper and steeper. Soon he was running through snow. At one point he passed a glacier. Everything was foggy and misty. He was so high up He was running through the clouds.

6:14Speaker 5:And I ran into the finish line which was 25 miles that day and I remember there were people cheering and clapping and the locals were playing drums and I thought that was really weird because actually that really only happens for the first male and the first female winners of the day and I was fourth overall and it wasn't a great result. So So I thought, why is everyone cheering and clapping and getting so excited for me? And as I crossed the finish line, all of that noise and commotion was still carrying on. And it was then when I turned around that I could see this little brown dog running in behind me. And of course, all of the attention.

6:52Speaker 1:Was for her.

6:53Speaker 4:This little brown dog had followed him for 25 miles, over a mountain. Dion didn't know what to think. There they were at the finish line, staring at each other. I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love. Dion decided to call the little dog, Gobi. He needed to eat, and he knew she must have been hungry too.

7:27Speaker 5:I started to unpack my bag to get my food out and my food consists of peanuts and almonds and dried meats and dehydrated food. All lightweight food, high calories, not specifically really great for dogs but I started to eat some of the dried meat which is great for the protein during the race and started to feed Gobi as well and she was so hungry that I ended up giving most of my food to her so She then collapsed next to me and laid next to me and went to sleep, and it was like she'd had a great day. She now had a full belly, and she was next to the one she wanted to be next to.

8:08Speaker 4:When Dion woke up the next morning, the dog was still curled up next to him. He says he was surprised she'd stuck with him. There were plenty of other people around, runners and race organizers, that had also given her food and attention. But she seemed to like him. Midway through day three, they reached a river about 300 feet wide. Dion says he's about six feet tall and the water came up to his waist. The current was very strong and he had to wade through it carefully.

8:41Speaker 4:He could see the first and second place runners ahead of him in the water.

8:45Speaker 5:I thought to myself, you know, they're not that far ahead of me. I can definitely catch them. I can make it through the water quickly and catch up to them.

8:52Speaker 4:And then he heard barking and yelping behind him.

8:57Speaker 5:And at that moment I spin around to see what's going on and it's Gobi running up and down the riverbank and she's barking, yelping and whining because I'd left her there and she knows that she can't cross the water on her own. And if she had, she would have been washed away. So I just made this decision, this instant decision to go back and to pick her up and as I went down, got on my knees and and lifted her up and put her in my arms she just nestled into my arms and she turned to me and she looked at me with these big brown eyes and she just had love in her eyes and from that moment on I was I was sold I mean.

9:38Speaker 4:That's a big deal to waste time in a race.

9:41Speaker 5:Yeah it's a huge deal um for someone that is there to win the race and um makes that decision to to go back and to sacrifice the time and the effort just to do it. Um, it was just something inside of me that I did. I didn't really think about it at the time. I just knew it was the right thing to do. And, um, I had, I had this sort of inner belief that it was the right thing. And, I needed to do it and just did it.

10:12Speaker 4:So once you cross the river, you put her down and keep running and she's right there by your side?

10:18Speaker 5:Yeah, we carry on and a few other occasions throughout that same stage, we cross some other water crossings, not as large. And we also cross some, um, river bridge gates that she couldn't cross on her own so I'd have to pick her up a couple of times and carry across them as well and I just every time I picked her up she just nestled into my arm and she just seemed to put on this smile and she just she knew how to work me let's put it that way and every time I did it I just fell more and more in love with her and it just she just sort of got into my heart from that moment.

10:55Speaker 4:As Dion and Gobi neared the end of the day, Dion says he was sure he'd be finishing in third place. But then he reached the top of a ridge and could see the two runners ahead of him. They didn't look like they were going very fast at all.

11:10Speaker 5:And I encouraged Gobi to run as fast as she could and tried to run quietly and quickly behind them to try and catch up on them. And they'd obviously been struggling. It was a really hot day and it was dry conditions. I think they're out of water as well. And, you know, I remember saying to Gobi, let's go, let's try and win this stage. And about 50 meters before the actual finish line, they turned around to see myself and Gobi running past them and they were shocked. And I ended up finishing that stage first and Gobi was second.

11:44Speaker 5:And it was just It was just the best feeling to know that I'd done the right thing and gone and got Gobi, picked her up, taken her across the river, but still went on to win that stage. And I was very proud of myself for that. And, you know, of course, Gobi and I became as thick as thieves really then.

12:03Speaker 4:This was about the halfway point of the race. It seemed like Gobi would keep running with him, whether it was good for her or not. Dion had trained to run 155 miles in the heat, but he figured, she hadn't. He was worried, and so he arranged for a race volunteer to drive Gobi for the next two stages of the race. And then they ran the final stage together. Dion stopped running every few miles to give Gobi water. At one point, another runner stopped too, instead of taking the opportunity to pass. The runner said it wouldn't be fair.

12:41Speaker 4:I could hardly run past you while you're giving her a drink. Dion and Gobi crossed the finish line together. Dion came in second overall, not the first-place finish he'd dreamed of, but he says he barely thought about that. At one point, he'd wondered if he'd finished the race at all. He says, just by being there, Gobi made me want to keep going. He'd already decided that he didn't want to go home to Scotland without her. This isn't an easy thing. I mean, taking a dog from China back to Scotland or really any country to any country is not something you just put the dog under your seat. There's a whole long, complicated process, right?

13:25Speaker 5:Yeah, especially in China. And this is a process that can take three months at the best of times. It's usually a three-month quarantine process just to find out whether a dog has rabies or not. So you've got to go through that process just for that alone.

13:41Speaker 4:Dion knew it would take time to put together a realistic plan. A race volunteer offered to take care of Gobi while Dion went home to work out the details. He contacted as many pet travel companies as he could, asking for help. Everyone said no. Logistically, it was a nightmare. Just getting Gobi to one of the bigger cities in China, where she could quarantine, was looking nearly impossible.

14:07Speaker 5:People from Beijing or Shanghai... could organize Gobi to be moved out of the country for us, but they needed someone from the region where Gobi was to bring the dog to either Beijing or Shanghai. Now, the lady that was looking after Gobi, she couldn't do that. So we were trying to find out how we could move Gobi. Gobi didn't have any of the medical requirements to go on a plane or to be moved, even in a car. So it was proving difficult to find out how this could happen.

14:38Speaker 4:And during this time, Dion says he stopped really getting any updates about how Gobi was doing. The race volunteer who'd offered to look after Gobi answered Dion's emails very sporadically. Sometimes Dion would go weeks without hearing anything.

14:55Speaker 5:That started to make me a little queasy inside, and I knew things weren't right for a little while before. I actually received a phone call to say Gobi had gone missing, and she was missing in that city of three million people, and.

15:09Speaker 1:I was devastated.

15:11Speaker 5:I was heartbroken and I was angry. I was really upset about it and I thought we had everything in place and that was the moment that I made a very quick decision to fly all the way back out to northwest China, all the way back. Those three aeroplanes and that long train ride to go out there and see if I could find her.

15:47Speaker 4:Dion had been training to run an ultramarathon in Chile in just a few months, which, according to his plan, would put him in a good position to run what's considered the toughest race in the world through the Sahara Desert in Morocco. But he left it all behind to go find Gobi. He knew the odds weren't great. In 2016, Urumqi, the city where she'd gone missing, had a population of 3.5 million people. Little by little, people heard about Dion and why he was looking for Gobi and stepped forward to help him print and put up posters.

16:25Speaker 5:Day after day after day, as we were putting these posters up, the word was getting out on the streets that this guy had come all this way for this little dog and people thought it was pretty amazing and everyone started searching. If only she knew just how popular she was.

16:41Speaker 4:The search team got bigger every day. One day, Dion says he counted 50 people, all helping him look. One of Dion's tentmates from the race flew over from Hong Kong to join in the search. Sometimes, the group would stay out all night. It was discouraging, though. Day after day, no luck. People would be eager to help, and be wrong. They'd tell Dion, we might have your dog, and he'd show up, and it would be a black lab. I mean, surely there must have been a few times where you thought to yourself, you know what, I've done all I can do. I've spent enough money. I've spent enough time.

17:20Speaker 4:I've got a wife. I've got a job. I've got a life. I can't give this dog any more time.

17:26Speaker 5:No. I was committed. From the moment I made that promise to Gobi, I was committed. And when she went missing, that commitment just fired up even more inside me. And, you know, I'm pretty driven and stubborn and. Yeah, no, there was no way I was going to let her down again after all that had happened. And there is just some connection and bond with Gobi that, yeah, I don't know. It's just unexplainable.

17:56Speaker 4:One night, Dion was eating dinner with his friend from the race, Richard. One of the search team members sent Dion a text with a blurry picture of a dog. She asked him if it was Gobi. Dion didn't think so. But Richard convinced him that they had to go see for themselves, just to be sure.

18:15Speaker 5:He said to me, look, you've got to go out and see if this is her or not. And we went out to this family's home and I walked in behind translator, a driver, Richard and a few other people from the search party and across the other side of the living room was this little brown dog and she came running up to me, barking, yelping and whining. As soon as she saw me, I hadn't said a word and... She was so excited to see me, and I knew straight away it was Gobi.

18:45Speaker 4:Gobi was safe with this family, but it was clear she'd been through a lot. She'd been hit by a car, and her leg needed an immediate operation.

18:54Speaker 5:But on the flip side, she was alive, and from that moment onwards, she wasn't going to go out of my sight.

19:02Speaker 4:In order to go home with Dion, Gobi had to pass a rabies test. Then, She had to wait 90 days for a second round of test results. Dion said okay. He asked his boss for a sabbatical from his job as a business manager for a whiskey company. He says he fully expected people to think he'd lost it completely. But for him, he says, it was the only solution that made any kind of sense. Dion rented a small apartment in Beijing for the two of them. They went for long walks. and found coffee shops that would let dogs inside. Dion says every morning when he woke up, Gobi would be staring at him, inches from his face.

19:45Speaker 4:And then, on New Year's Eve 2016, they headed home, together. When Gobi finally walked into the door of your home, when you finally walked in four months later, five months later, Gobi walks in. Do you think this little dog was saying, what the hell is this? What is going on?

20:05Speaker 5:She probably was when she saw the cat. That was probably a real shock to her system because I'd seen her with other cats out in Beijing and she's not a big fan of other cats. But I've got an indoor cat called Lara. And she's a rag doll and she's the princess of the house. And of course, from her point of view, Lara the cat, I'd been away for six months, basically. From the race started in June, it was January when I got there with Gobi. So for six months, I disappeared on Lara. And I'm probably her favorite out of my wife and her. So here I am finally turning up and she's excited to see me, yet I bring in this little dog. So that was a shock for both of them. But You know, they get on great, I guess, most of the time. They sleep together at night. They fight and run up and down the hallway during the day.

20:56Speaker 4:Yeah, it feels to me like Gobi's not like a dog that you train to sit.

21:03Speaker 5:Gobi can't do any tricks at all. She can run, but she can't do any tricks at all. And I've never tried to teach her anything either. So I think I love the personality and the dog that she is and... Yeah, she's her own sort of dog and her own character, and she's always got plenty of energy to burn. So, yeah, it's best left that she has a great life, but also that she enjoys herself as well.

21:32Speaker 4:Do you run with her now, just short little runs?

21:34Speaker 2:Yes.

21:35Speaker 5:We do run together, short runs, maybe to the bakery or to go and get a coffee. I mean, Gobi loves to run. She's born to run, and she would still love to be out there running ultramarathons. But with the leg operation that she received and just trying to look after Gobi in general, of course we don't make her do anything that she shouldn't do. And now it's more for enjoyment.

22:02Speaker 4:What is it like to just have a normal life with Gobi? I mean, the life you've known is hiding out in an apartment in Beijing, running across deserts, searching her down, you know, in the middle of cities. What is it like to just wake up in the morning and put a leash on Gobi and take her out to.

22:17Speaker 1:Go to the bathroom?

22:20Speaker 5:Well, it's something else just to be around her. I mean, she's just such a happy little dog, like even when things aren't going well. you just, uh, you can channel Gobi's positivity and, uh, just makes the day better. Sometimes you'll be walking along with Gobi and, you know, you'll be busy. I might be busy taking a phone call or on my phone or just not paying enough attention to Gobi. And I feel bad about that, but Gobi will sit down in the grass and, uh, there's no moving her. Like she may be a small dog, but when she wants to sit down and just stop and take the world in, that's what I do with her. And, uh, She can sit there for half an hour, an hour before she decides, right, I've had enough of this, let's go.

23:01Speaker 5:And it's those moments when I'm just sitting there and it's making sure I make the most of every moment I've got with her.

23:24Speaker 4:This Is Love is created by Lauren Spohr and me Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, and Lena Sillison. This episode was mixed by Michael Rayfield and Rob Byers. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Special thanks to Matt Majak. You can learn more about the show on our website, thisislovepodcast.com. and you can sign up for our newsletter at thisislovepodcast.com slash newsletter.

24:01Speaker 4:We're on Facebook and Instagram at This Is Love Show. This Is Love is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love.