‘I used to cook for Bono, now I make dinner for dogs’: Ex-chef details how recovering from addiction led him to finding joy in feeding stray pups in new book
- Niall Harbison’s new book explores how strays in Thailand brought him joy
- READ MORE: I started binge drinking at 14 and addiction made me suicidal – but now I’m sober and I love myself
HOPE
by Niall Harbison (HarperElement £18.99, 320pp)
Niall Harbison had been smoking, drinking, taking drugs and gambling since he was 13, and he finally hit rock bottom in his early 40s. After a six-day bender on booze and Valium, he ended up in intensive care in a Thai hospital, hooked up to drips and monitors.
Despite his addictions, Harbison had been successful in his career. A trained chef, he had worked in restaurants and then on yachts — rock star Bono was particularly partial to his full Irish breakfast.
The yachts were always fully stocked with expensive drinks, and Harbison often drank so much he’d black out. After a few years he gave up cooking and moved into digital marketing, eventually selling his company for several million euros. On a whim, Harbison moved to the island of Koh Samui in Thailand in 2018, taking his beloved rescue dog Snoop with him.
His recovery, which took a year, mostly involved long walks in the jungle with Snoop. On his walks he became aware of how many stray dogs were on the island: tens of thousands, he estimates. Pictured with Beagle McMuffin
When his girlfriend left him because of his drinking, he went into a downward spiral. After his stint in hospital, he realised that something had to change. ‘I knew that whatever I did next, I had to do with all my heart and soul,’ he said.
His recovery, which took a year, mostly involved long walks in the jungle with Snoop. On his walks he became aware of how many stray dogs were on the island: tens of thousands, he estimates. Many of them were ridden with fleas and worms, infected with ticks, and hobbling from injuries, yet he observed that ‘their spirits were amazingly unbroken, despite their tough lives’.
Harbison started buying dried food for the dogs and, within a week, he was fully committed to feeding them every day. At least half the dogs, he realised, wanted affection as well as food, and ‘after years of feeling I was a waste of space, I guess it was pathetically gratifying’.
While he longed to scoop them up and take them all home, Harbison accepted that the island dogs were content to live on the streets or in the jungle. ‘They’re often happiest in their natural environment,’ he says.
Every day he would find new packs of dogs or litters of puppies, and he had visions of his moped toppling under the weight of gigantic sacks of kibble. On a day when he found 50 puppies, he felt like crying with frustration. Simply feeding the dogs was hopeless, he concluded: his strategy had to include neutering and other health treatments.
Pleasingly, he has been able to call on the skills from his old life. Kibble is expensive and, he thinks, probably tastes like cardboard. He decided to cook the dogs fresh food: a mixture of rice, vegetables and meat. Adding chicken blood, he says with relish, makes it particularly tasty for them and it’s dirt cheap.
‘I had a hunch the ‘customers’ would be a damn sight more appreciative than some of the rich and famous I’d served before.’
He has also put his expertise in social media to good use, raising money from all over the world. Harbison keeps his followers updated on the ‘doggie nirvana’ compound he’s creating, and on dogs such as King Whacker, whose head was split open by an attacker but who made a miraculous recovery, or Britney, used in dog fights and then dumped in the jungle.
Every day he would find new packs of dogs or litters of puppies, and he had visions of his moped toppling under the weight of gigantic sacks of kibble
He claims to have only been badly bitten once, and he marvels at how sweet and trusting even the most scared, flea-bitten dog is.
Although he still suffers from depression, he has no fear of slipping back into addiction, because he’s simply too busy helping the dogs. There is no time for a girlfriend and besides, he sighs, who would want a bald Irishman who smells permanently of dog food?
Harbison’s aim is to help 10,000 dogs each month, and you wouldn’t bet against him achieving it.
Hope is a lovely book about someone who has been lucky enough to find his true purpose in life. People think he has saved these dogs, he says, but ‘really they saved me’.
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