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Niall Harbison says he's found his calling helping stray dogs in Thailand
On the small Thai island of Koh Samui, Niall Harbison sets out every day to feed dozens and dozens of street dogs.
Hearing the familiar sound of his moped, "they all come running out, wagging tails and they're delighted," said Harbison, author of Hope: How Street Dogs Taught Me the Meaning of Life.
"They're like, 'Oh there's the little Irishman coming.'"
Harbison's book details his efforts to feed, sterilize and rehome some of the 6,000 stray dogs on Koh Samui, a fraction of the estimated 1.6 million stray dogs in Thailand. Videos of the dogs he rescues from abuse and malnourishment have gained him more than a million followers online.
But while he's been busily saving dogs, he says those dogs have also saved him. Harbison moved to Thailand in 2018 amid a deteriorating addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs.
"There's a good chance I'd be dead, I'd say. I'm not even joking … I was addicted to Valium, and I was drinking three bottles of wine a day," he told The Current's Matt Galloway.
Found his calling while in the ICU
Years before he moved to Thailand, Harbison was a private chef on the yacht of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, serving celebrity guests like Bono. In 2009, he pivoted to media and marketing, setting up and later selling two social media companies.
Beneath that success, Harbison was dealing with depression and anxiety, and using alcohol to cope. His move to Koh Samui was partly in search of a healthier life, but by the end of 2020, he landed in the ICU after a heavy binge of alcohol and prescription drugs.
Harbison lay in that hospital bed over New Year's Eve, convinced he was dying as he listened to the fireworks outside.
"I just said, 'God, there has to be something more to life than what I lived, there has to be something that has some meaning,'" he said.
After three days in hospital, Harbison was discharged in early January 2021 to recover at home. He spent the year rebuilding his health, and thinking about what is important to him in life.
While out walking one day in early 2022, he stopped to feed some dogs in the jungle. He came back the next day to feed them again — and soon it was a daily ritual, feeding more and more dogs as weeks turned into months.
Harbison said there's little government effort to control the number of street dogs across Thailand. That leaves them roaming in packs, often hungry or sick. They're also hit by cars or hurt by humans.
"I've had dogs shot with a nail gun, slashed with machetes … they also fight with each other over territory," he said.
Louise Rose, CEO of Soi Dog Foundation (SDF), which works to educate the public and manage the stray population, told The Current in an email that there's a cultural norm for animals in Thailand to be free-roaming, whether they have owners or not.
But she said that "overpopulation and a lack of understanding of the welfare of stray animals is what drives the suffering," pointing to less stringent animal welfare laws and limited resources.
The charity was established in Thailand in 2003 to tackle that problem.
From self-funding to donations
Harbison initially paid for kibble out of his own savings, but began to receive donations from social media followers in spring 2022. By the end of that year he had hired a cook to make large batches of food, which meant he and other volunteers could now feed around 400 dogs a day.
Cooking the food was much cheaper, which meant more donation money could be spent on having dogs vaccinated and sterilized.
"For every dog you sterilize, you're probably stopping ten or 20 puppies coming in the future. So that's massively important," he said.
Working with local vets, he's now sterilized more than 2,000 dogs, and feeds 800 dogs a day. He rehabilitates some dogs in a small sanctuary, and has rehomed a few dozen with people in Thailand, Europe and North America — including former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher.
Late last year he unveiled Happy Doggo, a registered charity aimed at curbing the street dog problem not just in Thailand but globally.
New leash on life
12 years ago
Four dogs from Thailand could soon find new homes in Toronto.
Rose from SDF said that Harbison's efforts and his social media presence are a good example of the many people in Thailand pitching in to help street dogs.
"Social media is instrumental in reshaping society's perception of homeless animals. It is influential in educating the public and supporting organizations," she wrote.
Over 20 years, SDF has spayed, neutered, and vaccinated over one million stray animals. Now the organization is teaming up with Harbison's Happy Doggo to launch a mobile unit that can sterilize animals in Surat Thani, an area on Thailand's mainland, west of Koh Samui.
Not everyone has welcomed his efforts, however. Some locals have tried to chase him away on his feeding runs, but Harbison said he understands the reaction.
"It might get lost in translation that I'm doing all the vaccines and the sterilizing … they just see a foreigner coming along, feeding the dogs outside their house and they can get angry," he said.
Tina, a 'radiant' dog
In February 2023, Harbison met Tina, a golden retriever who had been repeatedly bred for puppies.
"She was just skin and bones. They had her tied up and not feeding her, and it was just horrific," he said.
Tina was so unwell that Harbison didn't originally recognize what breed she was. But she slowly came back to herself with some care and attention.
"She turned into this amazing dog … and she was just radiant," he said.
"And then I got the phone call from a random vet check, saying she had kidney failure and only had a month to live."
Tina was with Harbison for only six months, but she left a lasting impression. He's raised funds to build an animal hospital on Koh Samui this summer, which he plans to name after her.
Sharing stories like Tina's — and his own personal journey — are an important part of Harbison's work, but he knows that such a big animal welfare problem can't be fixed one dog at a time.
For now, he gets to go home at night knowing he's helped alleviate an animal's suffering.
"I'll think about that and I'll be like, 'God, I've done something that's actually made the world a better place,'" he said.
"I know that sounds cheesy or whatever, but that's how I feel."
Audio produced by Howard Goldenthal.
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Credit belongs to : www.cbc.ca
