Niall Harbison & Happy Doggo: Transforming the Lives of Thailand's Street Dogs

Meet Niall Harbison – the Belfast chef who hit rock bottom, moved to Koh Samui, and is now saving thousands of lives, one rescue at a time.

If you’ve spent any time in Thailand you know the sight: a skinny soi dog curled up outside a 7-Eleven, ribs showing, eyes wary but hopeful. Most of us toss a piece of chicken and keep walking. Niall Harbison stopped walking.

In 2021 the Irishman was fresh out of hospital after years of alcoholism had almost killed him. To stay sober he started running on the beaches of Koh Samui. The starving dogs he met on those runs gave him a new reason to get out of bed. He bought a bag of rice and some chicken, went back the next day, and has never really stopped since.

Happy Doggo: A Mission of Compassion and Impact

What began as one man feeding a dozen beach dogs has become Happy Doggo – a registered UK charity and U.S. 501(c)(3) that now:

• Feeds 800 street dogs every single day on Koh Samui alone
• Runs a 24-hour emergency vet response team
• Has funded over 80,000 sterilisations across Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia
• Prevented an estimated quarter of a million puppies from being born into suffering
• Just declared Koh Samui effectively “fixed” – the first island in Thailand to reach that milestone

Those are big numbers, but Niall’s work lives in the small moments that break your heart and put it back together again: the paralysed dog who took his first steps after months of physio, the puppy pulled from a rubbish bag with maggots in her eyes who now sleeps on a sofa in Scotland, the elderly street dog who spent his last night being stroked instead of alone under a food cart.

Every week Niall posts raw, unfiltered updates on his Substack and social channels. You’ll see him diving into flood water at 3 a.m. to catch an injured dog, carrying 40 kg sacks of rice in 35 °C heat, or sitting on the clinic floor bottle-feeding newborns while covered in blood and mud. He never sugar-coats it. “Some days we win, some days we lose,” he writes, “but we never stop showing up.”

Last month he ran a full marathon on a freshly broken foot and raised almost $700,000 USD. That money is already paying for a brand-new mobile sterilisation clinic launching in December 2025 and will fund another 20,000 operations across the region in 2026.

Living off-grid on land he cleared himself, Niall spends roughly £20,000 a month on food, medicine and vet bills. He has no big corporate sponsors, no government grants – just thousands of ordinary dog lovers around the world who send £5, £10, £50 whenever they can. Expats in Thailand, tourists who met him on holiday, school kids emptying their piggy banks – they all keep the wheels turning.

For those of us living here with our own rescue packs (four in my case), Niall’s work hits especially close to home. We know what it’s like to fall in love with a street dog who chose us outside a bar at 2 a.m. We know the vet bills, the midnight mange treatments, the joy of a first tail wag after weeks of fear. Niall is simply doing that times a thousand, every single day.

He doesn’t do it for likes or fame. He does it because, in his words, “These dogs saved me when I had nothing left. Now it’s my turn.”

How You Can Make a Difference

• Donate – £1 feeds a street dog for a full day: https://happydoggo.com/donate
• Subscribe to the weekly updates (warning: will make you cry happy tears): niallharbison.substack.com
• Follow the daily rescues on Instagram: instagram.com/niall.harbison
• Buy or gift the book that started it all: Tina – The Dog Who Changed the World
• Follow Niall on X for real-time updates: @NiallHarbison

One man from Belfast has proved that when you refuse to look away, real change is possible. Koh Samui’s street dogs are living proof.

Let’s make sure the rest of Thailand gets the same chance.

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Because no dog should ever go to bed hungry, scared, or alone again.

🐶❤️ Thailand’s street dogs thank you.