Gobi--DRAWING RESCUE ANIMALS

Instructions

DRAWING RESCUE ANIMALS PART ONE!! ABOUT GOBI: Gobi is a small, female Chihuahua mix that began following ultra marathon runner Dion Leonard at the beginning of Stage II of the Gobi Desert Run in China in June 2016. ============MORE DETAIL 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 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 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.

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