Watch: Dog runs for more than 100 miles to complete desert marathon:
Video Credit: Youtube/MARATHON DES SABLES
A dog has hit the headlines after joining more than eight hundred people to participate in a desert marathon and win a medal.
The demanding Marathon Des Sables takes place in the Sahara Desert in Morocco with participants being required to finish a 156-mile stretch of unfriendly terrain.
While people from all around the world go to Morocco to participate in this event, this time the human competitors were joined by a dog who they named Cactus.
Though the brave pooch skipped the first stage of the competition, he joined the other stages and managed to complete 140.7 miles of the entire track.
Throughout the race, Cactus’ popularity kept on growing. By the end of the third stage, the dog managed to cross the finish line and rank 52nd among over 800 runners.
“He did it! Cactus ran the whole long stage of 76 km. He is in very good shape, has eaten, drunk, he keeps running everywhere in the camp,” MARATHON DES SABLES shared on Twitter, speaking of the third stage of the competition.
On the following day, the pooch once again defied the odds by finishing the fourth stage of the race, a 53.5-mile stretch, in 11 hours and 15 minutes, not letting a sandstorm slow him down.
Cactus was also given an official race number and became the main attraction of the event. After crossing the final finish line, he was awarded a medal by the organizers of the race.
As it turned out after the race, Cactus’ real name is Mauricio Odio Truque Diggedy.
On the pooch’s Twitter account, his owners wrote:
“So happy to be doing walkies with so many lovely people. Good luck to everyone still doing their walkies and remember anything is paw-sible.”
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