It started with a single notification. Someone I’d never heard of had just donated twenty-five pounds. A few minutes passed, then came another message, telling me someone else I’d never heard of had given the same amount. After a few more minutes, there was another. Then another. Then someone gave a hundred pounds.
I was astounded and even a little confused. Was this real?
A few more pings and a few more minutes passed, and I checked on the Internet to see whether the article in the paper was also on the Daily Mirror site. It was there all right, and in the few hours that it had been live, it had been shared and liked by hundreds of people.
I’d never imagined anything like this could happen.
The online version of the article described the story as the “Heartwarming bond between ultra-marathon man and the stray dog he refuses to leave behind”.1 Something happened in me when I read those words. I’d known all along that my heart had been warmed by Gobi and that I refused to leave her behind, but I’d not used those words with the journalist. It was his description, and the fact that he had seen the significance of my meeting Gobi in much the same way that I did was encouraging.
Maybe that’s why people are making these donations, I thought. Maybe they see what he saw too.
Twenty-four hours after the piece came out in the paper, the crowdfunding page showed that the ￡5,000 target had been met. But it didn’t stop there. People kept on giving, all of them strangers to Lucja and me, all of them somehow moved by the story of this little dog who for some unknown reason chose me and wouldn’t give up.
As well as constant updates about the donations, my phone started to pop with messages from other journalists. Some of them messaged me through the crowdfunding site, others through social media or LinkedIn. It was hard to keep track of them all, but I wanted to get back to every one of them.
The UK papers contacted me first—another tabloid, then a couple of the mainstream papers. I suspected that the approach the journalists took would vary from paper to paper, that perhaps they might want to know about different aspects to the story. But they were all happy to ask the same questions: Why were you running in China? How did you meet Gobi? How far did Gobi run? When did you decide to bring Gobi home? Will you run with her again?
The first time I heard that last question, it made me stop. I realized that in all the busyness and planning, I’d never thought about what life would be like when Gobi came home to Edinburgh. Would she expect twenty-five-mile walks each day? How would she cope with city living? And if I did ever run with her again, would she stick to my side as she had before, or would she want to head off by herself into this strange new world with all its distractions?
There was so much I didn’t know about Gobi’s past, and there was so much I didn’t know about our future together. I guess that’s what makes the start of all relationships so exciting—even the ones with scruffy stray dogs.
After I’d had a few interviews with different newspapers, I got a message from someone at the BBC. Phil Williams wanted to interview me for his show on Radio 5 Live later that night, and even though I was starting to feel a bit tired from all the talking, no way was I going to turn him down.
The interview turned out to be the best thing I could do at the time. The producers combined the audio of my interview with video footage they’d managed to get from the race. The little one-minute video was more popular than I think even they imagined. Before long it had been viewed 14 million times, making it the second-most-viewed video on the BBC site.
After that, things really took off.
I did interviews with other BBC shows and stations; then the TV people started calling. I spoke with other channels in the UK, then ones in Germany, Russia, and Australia. I got on Skype and did interviews with CNN, ESPN (where Gobi’s story was in the top-ten plays of the day), Fox News, ABC, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Reuters, the New York Times, and podcasts, including the Eric Zane Show, which, in turn, gave the story a boost to a whole other level.
All along, the total on the crowdfunding page just kept rising. People from all over the world—Australia, India, Venezuela, Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, Ghana, Cambodia, and even North Korea—pledged to give what they could to the cause. Their generosity was humbling as well as exciting. I’d been to some of these places, and I knew the kinds of lives a lot of the people in them lived.
Within the space of a few days, everything had changed for Lucja and me. We’d been a little unsure about whether to do the crowdfunding and felt aware of just how big a challenge it was going to be to get Gobi home. In the space of twenty-four hours, nearly all of that concern was wiped out. Having Kiki’s support and getting so many pledges from people meant that we knew beyond doubt that the biggest obstacles had been taken care of: we had the expertise to get her back and the funds to make it happen. Everything seemed to be falling into place.
Almost everything.
Nurali wasn’t answering any of our e-mails.
12
“I just don’t see it, Lucja. I don’t see how it’s going to happen.”
We were lying in bed, waiting for the alarm, having our first conversation of the day, but the words had an eerie familiarity about them. I’d said the same thing many times in the week that had passed since the Daily Mirror article came out. While the crowdfunding page was up to almost ￡20,000, all we were getting from Nurali was silence.
Every time Lucja and I talked like this, I had tried my best to explain what I knew of Nurali and Urumqi. I had told her how the city was this crazy, busy place, and everyone there was rushing around doing their stuff. “Nurali thrives on being busy, so I can’t imagine she’s sitting at home with her feet up. She’s probably got a hundred other projects going on, and there’s no way she’s going to take time off to help us. Looking after a little dog has got to be way down her list of priorities.”
“So we need to remind her that this matters. We need her to remember how important this is, don’t we?” said Lucja.
I remembered the night of the sandstorm. “Nurali’s one of those people who won’t help if she thinks you’re being a pain. If we stress her out, I reckon she’ll go even slower just to piss us off.”
We sat in silence for a while.
“Do you think she’s seen all this stuff on Facebook?”
There was no way that would have happened. With no Facebook or Twitter making it into China, and almost no Western news channels on TV, I couldn’t imagine how any of the buzz we were experiencing had made it back there.
“So what do we do?”