Finding Gobi

by Dion Leonard

  “Whoever’s done it is trying to cash in. They know that Gobi’s been found and that she’s coming home, so the story’s about to get even bigger.”

  “But nobody else has ever cared for Gobi. Nobody else owns her.”

  “Not yet, they don’t.”

  My fears ran deep as though I were in a terrifying nightmare. I thought we’d left all the danger behind us in Urumqi, but was Gobi still at risk? If someone was making a play to claim Gobi on the Internet, wouldn’t it make sense for them to try and get Gobi in the flesh? If they had the dog, they could control the story.

  Was that why I was being followed by the men in suits and the grey saloon? I’d always thought they were from the government, but was it possible that they were actually reporting to someone else entirely?

  These thoughts stayed with me like a mosquito bite. I couldn’t stop returning to them long after my call with Jay ended. The more attention I paid them, the more inflamed and painful these dark fears became.

  I spent the entire flight home going over the same thoughts. Images of Gobi getting stolen from Kiki’s kennels flashed through my mind. Conspiracy theories about what might happen cast deep shadows over me. And a desperate desire to make sure that Gobi was okay left me feeling hollow inside.

  Added to that, I was thinking about work.

  I had been away from my job for almost two weeks, and I worried that I was pushing the limits of the company’s generosity. Everyone had been supportive throughout, and there was never any pressure to return from Urumqi, but I knew my colleagues were working extra hard to cover my workload in my absence. I didn’t want to abuse their kindness or take advantage of it.

  But I knew that, yet again, I had a choice to make.

  I could stick with the plan and leave Gobi in Kiki’s care for the next twenty-nine days while we waited for the all-clear on her rabies blood test. I could get on with my work, get back to spending quality time with Lucja, and wait for Gobi to be flown back to the UK, where she’d then spend four months in a secure kennel quarantine. We’d be able to visit her if we wanted, but it was not recommended because the confusion it caused for dogs was frequently traumatic. So if she did ride out the quarantine in the UK, she’d have to do it alone.

  The other option was for Gobi to wait the twenty-nine days for the all-clear on the rabies and then spend ninety days living a normal life in Beijing rather than four months locked in a UK facility. With the right tests and paperwork at the end of the ninety days, she could then fly back to the UK without having to set a paw in a quarantine facility.

  I knew I could trust Kiki. She had been great right from the very first e-mails we exchanged. But was it fair to leave her the burden of looking after a dog for so long that—just maybe—someone was planning to steal from her? Could I be sure that every single visitor to the kennels would be legit? Could Kiki be asked to maintain that level of vigilance and still run her business at the same time?

  I felt guilty leaving Gobi, and if something happened to her again as it did after the first time I said goodbye, I doubted I would have the strength to push through it. I had reached the edges of what I thought I could endure. All I wanted was for these problems to fade away, for the threats to stop, and for Lucja and me to get back to the job of bringing Gobi home.

  I knew exactly what I had to do. After hours of thinking it through on my final flight back to the UK, I came up with a plan—the only solution that made any kind of sense.

  The trouble was, I had absolutely no idea how I was going to explain it to Lucja or to my boss. They’d think I’d lost it completely.

  PART 6

  21

  Saying goodbye to Lucja was difficult. I had been home only a week when, for the second time in less than a month, I bought a last-minute plane ticket and made the twelve-hour journey back to China. I’ve travelled a lot for work over the years, but this was different. This time I’d be gone for four months.

  I’d thought it through, and it all made perfect sense. I needed to go back to Beijing and be with Gobi until her rabies results came through. After that, I figured I might as well stay the following three months so we could live together. The alternative of four months alone in quarantine outside Heathrow Airport simply wasn’t an option. I couldn’t leave her alone again. A 120-day sentence would turn her into a different dog.

  Just like Lucja, my bosses were wholly understanding and supportive. As soon as I returned from Beijing, I phoned and told them I was worried about Gobi, even though we’d finally found her. I mentioned that there were mysterious things going on behind the scenes and that I had to go back to China and spend the duration of the quarantine period with Gobi. I offered to resign, but they refused. Instead, they rushed through approval for a six-month sabbatical. That allowed me to leave the UK knowing I could focus fully on Gobi and have a job to come back to once the dust settled. In the eleven years I’d been working for them, I’d never known of anyone else taking a sabbatical for something like this, and I was staggered by their kindness.

  They say it takes a village to raise a child. I think it takes almost half a planet to rescue a dog. At least, that’s what it seemed like with Gobi. So many people had helped, from the thousands of supporters who had given money online to the search team who had pounded the streets and gone without sleep in Urumqi. My work colleagues had covered for me, and my bosses had given me generous time off. Kiki and her team had already done much more than I could have asked, and Lucja—who was also surrounded by an army of caring, supportive friends—never once wavered in her unrelenting support of my crazy mission. I could only do what I did because of the help of all those people.

  I was looking forward to arriving back in Beijing and seeing Gobi again. I knew Kiki would take great care of her, but in the back of my mind was the thought that anything was possible. At times it seemed as though every other Facebook message I received was yet another warning not to trust anyone and not to let Gobi out of my sight.

  Kiki met me at the airport. I climbed into the back of the van to have my face covered in doggie kisses as Gobi scrambled all over me, her tail going a million miles an hour. My reception was just like the night we were reunited back at the Ma family home. Gobi’s joy was infectious, and the van was soon full of tears and laughter.

  When she had finally calmed down enough for me to speak, I held her in the crook of my arm and said, “I guess this is where you and I start our new life together.” She stared back at me, those big eyes locked on mine, just as they had been during the race. My head told me that she couldn’t understand what I was saying, but my heart said otherwise. This little dog knew exactly what I meant. And I was convinced that in her own way, she was telling me that whatever the next stage of the adventure held for us, she was all in.

  Kiki had found us a place to stay for the first night, but the next day it was time to find a proper home for Gobi and me. With four months to wait until she had passed the strict UK requirements, I wanted to make sure we found a home where she would feel comfortable and safe.

  So, like a couple of college graduates who had just moved to a new city, we went looking for a home.

  The first place belonged to another pet owner, also one of Kiki’s clients. The man was temporarily moving his family back to Mexico and had generously offered to let us stay free of charge while we were in Beijing.

  It was a beautiful home in a gated community. High-end cars drove along pristine streets and parked in front of perfectly manicured lawns. The owner and his two dogs welcomed us warmly, and I was pleased to see Gobi trot up and give both the Labradors a friendly sniff and follow them around the den.

  “Let me show you the rest of the house,” said the owner as he stepped over a low wooden barrier at the bottom of the stairs.

  Instinctively I picked up Gobi and lifted her over.

  “Oh,” he said. “No dogs upstairs. They stay down here.”

  Oh dear, I thought. “Okay,” I said, putting Gobi back down on the other si
de of the barrier.

  Before I’d taken my second step, Gobi was whimpering. By the time I’d gotten halfway up, she had pushed her way through the barrier and was right beside me. I picked her up and followed the guy into an immaculate lounge area that looked as if it was prepped for a Vogue photo shoot.

  Gobi was straining to get down, her tail shaking wildly. “I don’t think this is going to work,” I said. “You have such a lovely place. If we stay here, it’ll end in tears.”

  The man smiled back. “I think you’re probably right.”

  Only two months had passed since I first met Gobi, and even though we had been together for only a few days of the race and the week in Urumqi, the bond between us was strong. Now that we had been reunited for the second time, she seemed determined not to let me out of her sight.

  The flat we looked at next was everything the previous house was not: it was small, was a little bit shabby, and contained almost no furniture. It was perfect.

  I particularly liked the fact that it was up on the eleventh floor. Even though I didn’t know how Gobi escaped from Nurali’s home, or whether she had been taken, I didn’t want to take any chances. After all, it had only taken a few seconds for Gobi to burst through the dog barrier that kept the Labradors out. If she did manage to find a way out of the flat door, surely she wouldn’t be able to hack the lift.

  Kiki’s guys took us to the local Walmart equivalent—WuMart—and we returned to the flat with all the essentials for the next four months: bed linens, a toaster, a frying pan, and a monster bag of dog food.

  I don’t think I’ll ever forget the moment I said goodbye to our helpers and closed the door behind them. I took a moment to look at Gobi, who stared, as she always did at times such as this, right back at me.

  “This is it,” I said. “Just you and me.” I was excited but pretty daunted as well. I knew enough about China to know that I was helpless. I couldn’t speak more than four words, and I couldn’t read a single character.

  If it was possible, Gobi’s stare grew even deeper. She tilted her head to one side, trotted back into the flat, jumped up on the couch, curled herself into a ball, gave two heavy sighs, and closed her eyes.

  “Fair enough,” I said, sitting down beside her. “If you’re not stressed, I guess I won’t be either.”

  During the coming days, I got to know Gobi a whole lot better. I knew from the race and our time in Urumqi that she liked to sleep up against me, using me as her pillow, but in Beijing she took being affectionate and tactile to a whole new level.

  As soon as I stepped out of the shower the following morning, she was licking my feet and shins as if they were covered in bacon. I just laughed and let her have at it. It was quite a change from the way I’d tried to avoid touching her when I first saw her in the desert. And even though I still didn’t have any medical evidence that proved she didn’t have rabies, she had charmed her way to my heart. I couldn’t resist.

  When the rest of me was dry, we went out to explore the local area. I’d seen a few shops at the bottom of the block of flats and a large shopping centre half a mile away. It was a beautiful summer’s day with no pollution that I could see, and I fancied a stroll along the nearby canal and a decent cup of coffee.

  The walk was easy enough. The coffee, however, was impossible.

  I went into the first Starbucks I saw and waited my time in the queue.

  I shuffled up to the counter and was just about to give my order when the server looked at Gobi in my arm and pointed to the door.

  “No dogs!”

  “Oh, it’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just get a takeaway.”

  “No. Take dog outside.” She waved her hands at me as if trying to flick off something unpleasant from her wrists.

  I left the store and continued walking. No way was I going to tie Gobi up and leave her outside.

  We got pretty much the same reaction at the next coffee place as well as the one after it, where we stopped and sat on the seats out front. I was giving Gobi some water from my hand, just as I did during the race, when a guy came out and told us to leave.

  “It’s only water!” I said, a bit annoyed by now.

  “No!” he shouted. “Must not do. You go.”

  We walked home more than a little dejected. In a small way I felt that I knew what it was like for Gobi and the countless other stray dogs in China. Being treated like an outcast was no fun at all. Being judged and rejected like that was painful.

  If Gobi was bothered by it, she didn’t let on. In fact, she seemed happier than ever. She held her head high, and her eyes shone bright as we walked. In many ways it was impossible to tell that she’d been a stray dog on the city streets a couple of weeks earlier, and the deep scar on the top of her head was slowly healing. But the way she carefully held her right hind leg up, avoiding putting weight on it, made it perfectly clear that we needed to fast-track her operation.

  Before that, however, I had another task to deal with. One that was even more urgent. I needed to register ownership of Gobi under my name. Chinese law states that every dog owner must carry his licence whenever out in public with his dog. I’d heard that if I was caught without one, Gobi could be taken away that instant.

  Kiki helped with the paperwork, and once it was done and I slipped the dog licence into my wallet, I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders. Not only was I now legal, but I also had another line of defense against someone else trying to claim ownership of Gobi.

  The more time I spent with Gobi, the more I learned about her. The more I learned about her, the more intrigued and amazed by her I became.

  Every time we walked past a piece of rubbish on the pavement, she’d pull at the lead and drag me over to let her scavenge for food. It told me that her street days in Urumqi probably weren’t her only experience of having to fend for herself, and I’d often watch her devour the leftover remnants inside a takeaway wrapper and wonder just how many secrets her life held.

  In spite of being a connoisseur of street food, she had already shown me in Urumqi that she could adapt easily to a more sophisticated style of life. I guess not every dog is suited to flat living, but Gobi settled into it with ease. In many ways she never seemed happier than when she was curled up beside me, staring deep into my eyes as we hung out on the couch. She didn’t bark when I was with her, she didn’t attack what little furniture we had, and on the few occasions when she didn’t manage to hold on until we’d got outside to do her business, I could see she felt guilty about it.

  The first time Gobi had an accident was soon after we moved in. I’d decided to get my coffee fix in the flat that morning, and I didn’t quite read her signs correctly. I thought Gobi was spinning around and sniffing the door because she’d heard a dog barking in a nearby flat.

  It was only when she disappeared into the bathroom for a minute and re-emerged, head down, walking sideways up to me, that I knew something was wrong. With her ears pinned down and head hung low, she wore a look of complete shame.

  I checked the bathroom and found a small lake of dog pee on the floor. Poor thing. I apologized profusely, and as soon as I’d cleaned up, I took her downstairs to her preferred toilet stop in the bushes near the entrance.

  The only thing Gobi didn’t like was being left alone in the flat. I tried to leave her as little as possible, but there were times when I had no other choice. If I needed to go to the gym to run on the treadmill, or if we were out of food and I needed to go to the supermarket, she had to stay back. Almost every time we did go out together, we would be spotted at least once or twice and asked for a photo. Gobi’s story had been a huge hit all over China, and leaving her tied up outside a supermarket or Starbucks while I went inside wasn’t a risk I was prepared to take.

  But leaving her was hard. I’d try to slip out the door as quickly as I could, often having to gently block her from following me. I’d always check and double-check that the door was locked, and as I walked away, I could hear her making the same noise that she di
d at the river crossing. That pained, high-pitched whimpering sound cut through me every time.

  As tough as it was to leave her, whenever I returned, she was just as overjoyed as she had been at the Ma family house the night we were reunited. She’d spin and sprint and yelp with pure adrenaline-rush excitement. Eventually she’d calm down enough for me to pick her up, and a deep sense of calm would fall over her, again just like at the river crossing. It’s still the same today; whenever Gobi is in my arms, I’m convinced that she doesn’t have a care in the world.

  To be trusted so much by a living creature is a powerful thing, especially when you know it could choose to leave at any time. But Gobi never showed any signs of wanting to be anywhere other than right by my side.

  Every morning I’d wake up and find her staring at me, her head so close to mine that I could feel her breath on my cheek. Most days, if I didn’t start playing with her soon enough, she’d start licking my face. That was one sign of doggie affection that I didn’t find quite so cute back in the early days, and it got me straight out of bed.

  We’d get downstairs quickly so she could do her business, but it was always obvious to me that what Gobi wanted more than anything was to get back up to the flat and settle down for a good cuddle.

  For me to be on the receiving end of that kind of love and devotion is a special thing. To be able to care for her, to be able to give her the kind of attention and affection she needs, touches something deep down in my heart.

  Love. Devotion. Attention. Affection. In many ways I feel they all disappeared from my life when I hit ten. A whole decade would pass before I met Lucja and felt all that good stuff begin to flood back into my life.

  What Gobi introduced to my life was the chance for me to treat someone young and vulnerable in the way I wanted to be treated when my life was shaken out of control. Gobi needed me. Even though I’m still not sure I can adequately put words to the feelings, I know that rescuing her has healed wounds I didn’t know were within me.