Edinburgh-based Mr Leonard first met his new best friend early in the Gobi March, a 250-kilometre run across mountain and desert areas around the region of Kashgar. The race forms part of the gruelling international 4 Deserts series.

At first Mr Leonard didn't think much of his small fluffy sidekick. But the story that unfolded is incredible and has now gone global, with the BBC, Australian celebrity vet Chris Brown, The Daily Mail and The Independent among those profiling the unlikely duo.

"I noticed this dog was at my feet and looking up at me and I'm thinking 'I saw that dog yesterday walking around the campsite, that's a bit odd'," Mr Leonard told BBC Radio.

"I started to speed off and this little dog is looking up at me and I'm thinking 'this dog won't last the whole day' but 25 miles I think we ran that day and she was still with me at the end.

"Day three was exactly the same. We started the race together and during that stage I actually had to take her across lots of rivers. She slept with me on day two, she came into the camp with me. From then on she didn't leave my side."

Mr Leonard said the dog - since christened Gobi - had shown incredible stamina to cover half the distance of the March with him and that she would have been up for more, had the race not gone into desert regions where temperatures reached an inhospitable 52 degrees.

Race organisers stepped in to keep them together.

"She'd sit there and wait for me [at the finish line] so I could see her as a I was running in. It was amazing to see her stand up and start running towards me," Mr Leonard said.

"It was then that I realised this was something else other than a little dog following me."

The next leg of the 4 Deserts Series is the Atacama Crossing in Chile in October but Mr Leonard has taken on a more sentimental challenge in the mean time - a bid to be reunited with Gobi in Edinburgh.

Using the hashtag #bringgobihome, he has started fundraising for her "immigration fees" and has Facebook and Instagram pages set up for the cause.

Mr Leonard has pledged that any extra funds raised will be donated to a still-to-be-determined dog charity.