‘I’m so lucky’: How one man went from drinking himself to death to rescuing thousands of stray dogs

A few years ago, Niall Harbison owned a media business in Manchester. Tired of the rat race, he moved to Thailand in search of sunnier climes. But in 2021, he suffered a near-death experience. 

“I’d always been a functioning alcoholic, my whole life,” he says. “And I just went a bit mad when I got here because there was nobody to check on me or tell me to stop, so I ended up in hospital. I nearly drank myself to death. I was like, ‘Oh, wow, what a crappy life – you haven’t even done anything meaningful.’ It was a sliding doors moment: I was just like, ‘If I survive now, I’m going to do something with my life.’” 

During his months-long recovery, he met a street dog, who he named Lucky. “I was just driving, and I stopped to feed this dog. She was really sick and thin. I fed her and I felt great.  And then I got home, and I was like, ‘Well, who’s going to feed her tomorrow?’ So then I went back the next day and she had a friend, so suddenly it was two dogs, and then it was four dogs, and by the end of two weeks, I was up to about 20 dogs. 

“Then I realised that I was only solving one of their problems. Bigger issues were around medicine, neutering, vaccinations, that sort of stuff. I realised after about six months I needed a place to bring them, so I got a bit of land and built a little shelter. We sterilise 7,000 dogs every month now.

“Stopping so many more puppies from coming into the world is a big part of what we do. We also feed 1,200 dogs every day. We make the food fresh and hand it out to volunteers. But we also have to change people’s hearts and minds.” 

To do so, he shares his work with over 1.4 million people on X and Instagram. “I never thought the social media would get as big as it has,” he says. “I started it because my parents and friends were worried about me, and so I just started sharing the dogs on my own Instagram, and people started sharing it with their friends. There’s just so much bad news, and I think seeing all these dogs wagging their tails makes people feel good.” 

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

• Dogs are much happier than humans. Here’s why
• The middle class sucked the fun out of owning a dog and football. What’s next?
• Meet the very good dogs saving lives by donating blood: ‘Dogs are so special, they give us so much’

He has also turned to longer-form storytelling with Tina: The Dog Who Changed the World, a follow-up to his internationally bestselling first book, Hope: How Street Dogs Taught Me the Meaning of Life. When he met Tina, “she was very thin, with a chain around her neck. She was a golden retriever, but you wouldn’t know when you first saw her. I rescued her and built her back up, and she turned into this beautiful dog. She’d been used for breeding, so she had a second chance at life, and she was just amazing. 

“But then unfortunately, very quickly, we found out that she had kidney failure, so I only knew her for six months, but she had a real joy for life. It was really sad when she died, but then I decided I wanted to honour her life and legacy, so I decided to build a hospital and then wrote the book in her name. I think a lot of people have that one dog, a kind of soul dog, and she was that for me. That drives me on.” 

Many dogs have gone to loving homes across the world – including Liam Gallagher’s. “It was actually ridiculous,” Harbison says. “We have an online application form, and one came through and the name was Liam Gallagher. I saw it in the spreadsheet, and I was like, ‘That’s got to be my mates.’ The occupation said ‘singer’, and I was like, this is ridiculous.

But we checked it out and it was actually him. He and his partner applied for one of the dogs, because they’d been following on Instagram and liked all the little characters, and they’d been thinking about adopting one for a while. I went to drop the dog off to him in England and everything. It was totally surreal.” 

He finds that the dogs’ stories resonate with people who can relate to their experiences. “Like, if a dog has cancer, a lot of cancer survivors go on the journey with them, or if a dog’s overweight, you get people saying, ‘Oh, I’m trying to lose some weight as well.’ I relate to them because a lot of them are down on their luck; they just need a bit of a break. I really do resonate with them a lot.

Some of the dogs I see have had such a hard start, but they are so happy. I just love that they don’t look backwards at all – just totally living in the moment. There’s nothing else that matters, and that’s great.” 

He also hopes that, by sharing his story, he can help others who have struggled with addiction, mental ill health and a lack of direction. “It was really hard when I read the audiobook,” he says. “You have five sound engineers in your earphones, and I had to read out, ‘I was depressed.’ I found that really tough – putting myself out there for everyone to see. But I want to help people with their own mental health. 

“I have depression as well as having suffered from alcoholism, but the book explains how you can have a second chance, even if you’ve had the worst setbacks. I think that having a meaningful mission is so important in life, and it was missing from mine for 42 years until I was in hospital and thought I was dying. I just realised, you’re trying to pay off credit cards, buy a new phone, get a promotion, whatever – all these stupid things just mean nothing. I feel so lucky that I have a mission, because I spent most of my life without one.” 

You can follow Niall Harbison on Instagram and X. Support Happy Doggo or sign up to adopt a dog here. 

Tina: The Dog Who Changed the World by Niall Harbison is out now (HarperCollins, £20).You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy of the magazine or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.