A Dog Named Cactus Bandited One of the Toughest Ultras in the World – runnersworld.com

• A dog named Cactus joined the this year, running alongside participants through the Sahara Desert in Morocco.
• Owned by a local innkeeper, Cactus completed all but the first stage of the seven-day race.
• The race is considered one of the toughest in the world because of the harsh desert conditions.

Marathon des Sables pushes runners to the limits in what is called “the toughest footrace on Earth.” This year, though, one unexpected participant gave participants a nice distraction from the rough conditions in the Sahara Desert in Morocco.

On the second day of the seven-day stage race, a curious canine found himself at the start. Enter Cactus, a local pup with a nose for adventure. Though no one knew who he was or where he came from, he quickly won the hearts of the runners before they were off for the day.

No one expected Cactus to join them once the runners were sent off.

“I met him on the second stage about 3K in,” French participant Gregory Herlez told Runner’s World. “I met some children, and they asked if this was my dog, and I said, ‘No, I don’t know whose dog this is.’ I think it was a dog of a village nearby. Then he just ran together with us for each stage.”

For six days, Cactus ran beside his new friends. Many competitors struggled to keep up, but they counted on Cactus to continue bringing smiles to everyone. Though Cactus came unprepared for the race without fuel, he was cared for by one competitor who’s a veterinarian. Everyone else shared water and food with him, too.

“For us, it was very odd to see him, but when we saw him, we would forget the difficulty of the race,” Herlez said. “I’d catch up to him at every checkpoint, and Cactus was sleeping in the shade. He was very well taken care of. Us runners, we are not as good as the dog.”

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On the final day, Cactus was even given a GPS tracker so fans could follow his progress on the final leg until he crossed the finish line. He received a medal as the first-ever dog finisher of the race.

Participants took photos of Cactus throughout the race and posted them on social media with various hashtags like #CactusTheMdsDog. Even a was created for him.

“Everyone wanted a photograph with him to have a memory of the race of Cactus,” Herlez said.

At the end, the social media posts ended up alerting his owner, Karen Hadfield, a local innkeeper, who picked up Cactus—whose real name is Mauricio Odio Truque Diggedy—at the end of the race.

It appears Cactus is taking some time to recover before trying another spontaneous adventure race.

Gear & News Editor Drew covers a variety of subjects for Runner’s World and Bicycling, and he specializes in writing and editing human interest pieces while also covering health, wellness, gear, and fitness for the brand.