I was an alcoholic who changed the life of abused dog - until unthinkable happened

Moving to and giving up everything to care for stray, starving and abused dogs wasn’t on Niall Harbison’s bingo card seven years ago when he was running his own business in . But suffering from , alcoholism and seasonal affective disorder (SAD), he knew he needed a life change, and after visiting the South East Asian country a few times before, he decided to make the leap.

“I’m quite impulsive,” says Niall, 45, from Tyrone, Northern Ireland. “I sold my business so I had a little bit of money. The idea was to relax and find something to do. I came here to escape the rat race and get healthy. But when I got to Thailand I had nothing to do, there was nobody to tell me not to drink so I drank every day for more than a year.

"It was a combination of things - I broke up with a girlfriend who moved here with me, it was and everyone was drinking a lot. I was stuck in the house with nothing to do - I always like to be busy and I had no purpose. All those factors came together.”

He was living on the paradise island of Koh Samui, yet Niall was just stuck inside, drinking. “I drank myself nearly to death,” he says. After being rushed to hospital, where he was treated in the ICU (“they were pumping me with drugs as it’s dangerous to detox too quickly”), he had a series of revelations about his life.

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“When I was nearly dying, I thought that no one’s going to care or remember you if you didn’t do anything worthwhile. I realised that money and fancy possessions don’t really matter. I knew that, if I survived this, I wanted to do something worthwhile. The things that had flashed in front of my eyes were memories of playing football as a kid, and my dog.

" were a huge thing for me as a child and as soon as I got my first house when I was 33, I got a dog the next day. He was a labrador-cross called Snoop - he came to Thailand with me.” (Snoop died last year).

In early 2021, once Niall was healthy again, he started stopping to feed the odd stray dog. “There are a lot of dogs in this part of the ,” he says. “One day, I fed one in the middle of nowhere but then I thought, “who’s going to feed this dog tomorrow? So I went back to that one dog and noticed more, so it started organically like that.”

He didn’t realise but that was the start of Happy Doggo, a charity dedicated to helping neglected and mistreated street dogs, that now employs 18 people, including a vet, with the goal of saving 10,000 dogs a month.

Dedicated fans of Niall and his charity’s work are gripped by the stories he shares on social media to his 1.8 million followers, showcasing the animals’ incredible transformations from skin and bones at the point of rescue to looking sleek, happy and well-fed, often heading off to their forever homes (, who’d been abandoned as a puppy).

”I put the stories online to share some positivity. Everyone is sick of wars and the cost of living. It’s all bad news and I try to put something positive out there and that’s resonated with people.”

Each rescue is given a celebrity name, with Cindy Crawford, Britney, Emma Stone and Tom Cruise all wagging their tails and melting hearts at Happy Doggo’s sanctuary. But Niall says, “There was no big magic plan. I was feeding and doing my own thing. I had no social media at that stage and my friends and family were always worried about me. I started sharing the videos on for them and it snowballed.”

The number of dogs he helped also rose. “It was step by step - I started feeding 40 dogs, not crazy expensive - I started cooking for them and making cheaper food with rice and chicken. Then it was 60, and it got up to 80 dogs everyday. It was eating into my savings but it was giving me such a big sense of purpose. It was very fulfilling.

“The dogs would come running and follow my moped. It was the first time in my life that I felt reliable - I was so conscious of the fact that they were relying on me. Then I learned more and realised that they needed to be sterilised. I also realised that they were sick. I needed somewhere to take the very sick dogs so I built a sanctuary in the jungle.”

By the end of 2022, Niall was able to help dogs who needed more than a regular meal - those being mistreated, starved and forced to breed relentlessly. Then a few months later he heard about a horribly neglected golden retriever used for breeding. She ended up inspiring him so much that he has written a book in her honour, Tina: The Dog Who Changed the World.

“A tourist had driven past her, DM-ed me her location on Instagram. I went to see her owners who don’t want to lose face so they said, ‘she got hit by a car, she’s got some internal issues’. We asked, ‘can we take her?’ and never heard from them again.”

He called her Tina after Tina Turner - “the blonde spiky hair fit perfectly,” he smiles. “You could tell she was amazing. But at the start she was terrible - on a chain and emaciated. In those days I didn’t know what to do with starving dogs and I gave her a big meal to get some food in her belly. She started bloating - I had fed her too much and I nearly killed her.”

He took Tina to the vet but Niall admits, “I didn’t think she’d make it. I thought we were taking her away to die. The first few days were touch and go, then I thought she might live a week or two.

“She was starved, she had terrible skin - very bad mange - and blood disease from ticks that suck their blood and give them tick fever. She was probably about eight or nine but she’d had a tough life, which makes it hard to tell her age.”

But defying all odds, Tina got better. She started following Niall everywhere, smiling and wagging her tail. “She was like a golden retriever in a movie,” he says. “It felt like the first time she had freedom. She wasn’t aggressive - she loved people so much.

“I didn’t need to put a lead on her, she’d try and sit as close to you as possible - a real lap dog. Even though she’d had so much trauma and all her babies taken away, she didn’t have an ounce of badness in her. From day one, I had her in my house to make sure she wouldn’t die on her own. She’d sleep in my bed, on my head sometimes!

“For three or four months she was bubbly and looking great, and then we got the call after taking her for a routine check-up. I can still remember it: stage four kidney failure, which means you’ve got a couple of months at best.

“It was a result of her body being battered over the years - it all caught up with her. She had made it so far and had tasted freedom and got that blow. It was a bitter pill to swallow.”

In August 2023, Tina died. She had been with Niall for six months, surviving just two more months after her diagnosis. “She lived more in those six months than anyone could have. We took her everywhere on adventures, it was a wonderful end to her life.”

Tina, says Niall, is the “driving force” behind Happy Doggo, which now feeds 1,200 street dogs a day and rehomes dogs around the world. “It’s a constant battle and I never give up feeding the dogs. I do that every morning. That’s why I got into it and that’s what I love.”

Niall’s mental health has improved. “I haven’t drunk for four years,” he says. “But I still suffer from depression. Not like before - it never goes away - but it’s much better.”

And Tina’s attitude inspires Niall to this day. “There are times when I think about giving up or taking a break but she makes me push on. I think of her face when I feel stressed. Thinking of her and her suffering gives the whole thing purpose and a mission.

Tina: The Dog Who Changed the World by Niall Harbison (HarperElement), £20, is out now; visit happydoggo.com