1 . It was the first night of a tiring seven-day 250km race across the Gobi Desert a year ago. Mr. Leonard___________a little dog going around his camp trying to ___________herself.

“Cute, but I’m not giving you any,” Leonard thought. Like all ___________, he had packed just enough for the whole ___________. He’d been running competitively for three years, and he had a___________ to win.

The next day, at the starting line, the dog ___________ him again. He waved her away, worried that she might be stepped on by the runners. ___________, the dog followed him all the way until the day’s race ___________. That night the dog snuggled (偎依) up to Leonard and even___________ to get a little food from him. By then, he was determined to name her Gobi.

The pair went on to finish the seven-day race, with Gobi____________ a distance of 125km on her own, and winning Leonard over, enough for him to make a____________ — he would take her home to Edinburgh. “Seeing Gobi on the race ____________my attitude to things. It made me think more about stopping and helping her, rather than just focusing on winning, ” said Leonard, who finished second. “It also made my running more enjoyable , giving me a lot of pleasure.”

As Leonard was preparing to get Gobi home, she was missing. With a group of 20 local volunteers coming to his ____________ , he finally found her. After that, Leonard never let Gobi out of his____________. Now Gobi’s favorite activity is still running, and she__________ does at least 8km a day with Leonard up the hills.

2 . One day last summer, my 9-year-old son Ben and I were riding the waves at a popular ocean beach on outer Cape Cod. As we were playing happily with our surfboard, I suddenly noticed an astonishing ________—some whales were spouting (喷水) well within view of where we ________.

We stared and pointed in ________. “Ben, can you believe it?” I cried. “We’re swimming with the whales!” “Mom,” Ben said in reply, “we’re always swimming with the whales. This is their________, not ours!”

Ben’s words took my breath away, more than the dramatic waves and the amazing sight of the________.

He was absolutely________, of course. These whales live in the waters off Cape Cod. This is their home—one that we ________, love and protect. So when we set foot into a ________ space, it’s meaningful and important to ________ that we are visiting something that is beautiful and enjoyable to us, but is not ________ for us.

We each have a part to play in ________space. When we acknowledge our coexistence, as Ben________, we set ourselves up for success in how we interact with each other. This is as ________ in the vastness of the ocean as it is in our ________ where we live, work, play and serve.

How we ________ and support each other in this vast ocean of life—that’s up to us.

5 . It’s about 250 miles from the hills of west-central Iowa to Ehlers’ home in Minnesota. During the long trip home, following a weekend of hunting, Ehlers _________ about the small dog he had seen trembling along the road. He had tried to coax(哄) the dog to him but, frightened, it had _________.

Back home, Ehlers was troubled by that _________ dog. So, four days later, he called his friend Greg, and the two drove _________. After a long and careful _________, Greg saw, across a field, the dog moving _________ away. Ehlers eventually succeeded in coaxing the animal to him. Nervousness and fear were replaced with _________. It just started licking(舔) Ehlers’ face.

A local farmer told them the dog sounded like one _________ as lost in the local paper. The ad had a phone number of a couple from a town in southern Michigan. Ehlers called the number of the couple, Jeff and Lisa, to tell them he had _________ their dog.

Jeff had __________ in Iowa before Thanksgiving with his dog, Rosie, but the gun shots had scared the dog off. Jeff searched __________ for Rosie in the next four days.

Ehlers returned to Minnesotan, and then drove 100 miles to Minneapolis to put Rosie on a flight to Michigan. “It’s good to know there’s still someone out there who __________ enough to go to that kind of trouble,” says Lisa of Ehlers’ rescue __________.

“I figured whoever lost the dog was probably just as __________ to it as I am to my dogs,” says Ehlers. “If it had been my dog, I’d hope that somebody would be __________ to go that extra mile.”

6 . I’ve been in an 18-year special feeling with the black walnut (黑胡桃) tree in my backyard. It’s a _______relationship. In late September or early October, the fruitful tree _________me by how great nature works. Meanwhile, falling nuts as hard as baseballs are really a _________, causing cries of pain.

Moreover, the black walnut gives away a chemical that is harmful to its neighboring plants. I brought many new plant varieties home with_______ that maybe the black walnut would accept them, but they all failed to_______ , leaving the garden to the walnut tree alone.

Have I thought of _______ this giant pain in my tiny backyard? Yes. However, getting rid of this tree standing at 50 feet with an 87-inch trunk was_______, and it was protected by the law. Rightfully so. Like cities for human beings, trees are home to many birds and insect species and significant for keeping our environment_______.

Sometimes I think about my life without the black walnut. I can’t_______ a spring without the birds who arrive every year and loudly sing before dawn. I’d miss the________ weekend afternoons when I admire its colorful leaves from where the nuts might fall at any moment.

Would my garden be____________, admitting no more plants? Or what are the __________   of being hit by the falling nuts while barbecuing? I’m ________ with this tree. ________, it offers a home to wildlife and a message that________, instead of rejection, is the better way to follow.

9 . Love is blind: the magic of Tabby

In October, 2003, I started my work at my local animal shelter’s adoption department. Over the years, more than 50,000 animals have______the door of the shelter. Most of them, I do not remember. But occasionally there are special animals, which touch me so deeply that I could never possibly______them. Tabby was one such animal.

Tabby was an ancient cocker spaniel, probably 14 years old. What’s more, she was blind and deaf. Tabby’s chances of being adopted seemed______. After all, there weren’t many adopters coming here asking, “Can you show me all of your really old dogs that are also______?” We had all thought that Tabby would live out the rest of her life at the shelter.

One day a woman named Loretta came to the shelter. Her son, Gary, had______Tabby’s picture and stories on the shelter’s website at home. They were interested in meeting her! It was the only______we ever received about Tabby. What could a young child possibly see in a 14-year-old dog that was both blind and deaf? Most boys would want a dog that could grow with them and______through grassy fields on summer days. Tabby would never be able to do that. But after meeting her, Loretta and Gary thought that she was the right dog for their family. They adopted Tabby!

If Tabby’s story had simply ended with her______adoption, it would still have been something very special indeed. ______, it was what happened after her adoption that people might regard as “magic”. Gary______from seizures(癫痫). Since Gary and Tabby met, they had become______. They did everything together. They became so “in tune” with one another that Tabby began to telegraph Gary’s seizures______they occurred, giving his family a warning that one was about to strike. What’s more, Gary seemed to be having fewer and fewer seizures because of Tabby’s______.

How could it be? Nobody could explain______Tabby did it. But we were fortunate enough to know they had______the magic, the kind that has its roots in love.