Meet the man dedicating his life to helping thousands of stray dogs. Also: the childhood sweethearts who reunited after 85 years, and Baileigh Sinaman-Daniel, playing college basketball with only one arm.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Rachel Wright, and in this edition... You're moving faster every day, Tom Cruise.
I can't keep up with you, mister. You're a flying machine. You're a flying machine. Look at him go.
I meet this man who's helped thousands of stray dogs in Thailand, two childhood sweethearts reunited after more than 85 years.
All these years just passed, and then suddenly we got in touch again. And...
I looked at the text and I thought to myself, like, history? Like, what are you talking about? And then that's when it clicked in my head for a second. I was like, OK, maybe this is kind of a big deal.
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Chapter 2: Who is helping Thailand's street dogs?
An historic moment in college basketball. Meet the first player with one arm to score during a game. We begin with the story of a man in Thailand who's become an online celebrity after sharing his stories of the abandoned street dogs he's fed, rehomed and treated. Niall Harbison lives on the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand.
His story begins when he himself was in a bad place, recovering in hospital from alcohol poisoning. He decided to turn his life around. and began to befriend some of the island's many stray dogs, and that became his mission, to fix the global street dog problem.
At his rehabilitation centre on the island, he works tirelessly to improve the dogs' lives, feeding, grooming, treating and sterilising, which doesn't sound that pleasant, but Niall says that will save many more dogs from being born on the street. While on holiday in Thailand myself last month, I went to visit him and met some of his four-legged friends.
Oh, here he is. Hello, mister. His tail is wagging, which is a good... That's my finger, mister. You can see his back leg is really not doing fantastic. He's in a lot of pain. We can fix you, mister. You're going to go to the doggy spa, a full health check-up, nice food. What more could you want than that, mister? It's your lucky day.
This is one of Niall Harbison's daily updates on his Instagram page about the trials and tribulations of his dog rescue centre on Koa Samui. That dog he's just met, with very short legs and a big head, he's named Tom Cruise. When he was first found, he was covered in oil and blood-sucking ticks with a back leg just hanging off his body.
Over the past three years, Niall has fed, treated and rehomed thousands of dogs.
Lovely to be able to jump in there.
He picked me up from outside a supermarket in a truck emblazoned with his happy doggo logo and took me up Hope Avenue to what he calls the land.
So down here, we're just walking past the dogs. They'll probably start barking. That's Bridgie. I'm sure most people have been to a dog charity. It can be quite depressing. It can feel like a prison where the dogs are going crazy and it's noisy. I wanted it to be the opposite of that, if possible. Dogs are still, you know, they'll bark and they'll fight a little bit.
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Chapter 3: How did two childhood sweethearts reunite after 85 years?
And that's when the street dogs came in. So I just started feeding one or two on my way home on the bike. And then it's grown into this. It's just more and more dogs... And we sterilise dogs. We're building a hospital. We sterilise 7,000 dogs every month. So I'm trying to make a difference for the street dog.
You have built up an enormous following on social media, on Instagram and Twitter. How does that make you feel that you've done that?
Well, actually, people like a bit of good news, you know, and that's hopefully why they're starting their day with that, because there's quite a bombardment of bad news. So, yeah, it's a little bit of hope in their day. What is your ultimate plan? The ultimate plan is ridiculous and I'll probably fail. There's 500 million street dogs in the world and in my lifetime, I want to half that.
So that's 250 million street dogs. So it's bonkers to try and do that. But we're going to try and do it through sterilisation, education and legislation. We need to get government support. We're on the way, but there's just so much to do.
Meanwhile, remember Tom Cruise, who came in with a completely useless back leg? He looks almost unrecognisable, clean, tick-free and dressed in a colourful bandana. And what's more, he's running.
Boy, Mr Tom Cruise, look at that leg go, mister. It's back in action today. It's back in action. You're moving faster every day, Tom Cruise. I can't keep up with you, mister. You're a flying machine. You're a flying machine. Look at him go. If that's not the happiest dog in Thailand, I don't know who is.
Niall Harbison of Happy Doggo on the island of Koh Samui. To the Scottish borders for this next story. Back in the late 1930s, Jim Dougal and Betty Davidson walked to school together, hand in hand. But they lost touch after Jim's family moved away.
These two childhood sweethearts have now been reunited after more than 85 years, thanks to Jim's son Alistair and his efforts to trace all the children in his dad's old school photo. The pair met again recently and this is what Betty had to say about the encounter.
I used to knock on the door for him in the morning or he knocked on mine and we used to walk up to school together. I was quite surprised actually and it was nice to get in touch after all these years. It was my childhood sweetheart. All these years have passed and then suddenly we got in touch again.
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Chapter 4: What inspired Pakistan's first hand-drawn animation studio?
Now to a man whose childhood love of Japanese anime cartoons led to the creation of Pakistan's first hand-drawn animation studio. Usman Riaz grew up in Karachi and never dreamed he could turn his passion into a career. so instead focused on music, winning a scholarship to Berkeley College in the US.
But after being invited to visit the famous Studio Ghibli in Tokyo, he gave it all up to make The Glassworker, a homage to the anime films of his childhood that was long-listed for the 2025 Oscars. Osman's been speaking to Mubeen Azhar.
I walked into the administration office with a signed paper saying I'm dropping out. And I had a full scholarship. So I felt a little scared. But also, this is what is meant by a leap of faith. And when I walked out, I felt all of this weight lift off of me. And it felt like the universe saying, OK, now run. The Glassworker is a coming-of-age story about two children from separate walks of life.
One is an apprentice glassblower learning from his father in their artisan glass shop, and the other is a gifted violinist struggling to find her own unique voice on the instrument. And the film follows both characters through their formative years as a growing threat of war strains their relationship. I wrote the film when I was 23.
So it's like a time capsule of the way I was thinking in the early 2010s. Ultimately, what I'm trying to say with the film is, and it's a naive approach, but I believe that war is not the answer to anything. Ultimately, it's the people who are caught in the conflict that suffer, regardless of whoever the victor is.
Usman didn't know it would take 10 whole years to bring that idea to life. But before he could fully get to work on the film, He had to set up a hand-drawn animation studio in Pakistan.
I think in order to do something that has never been done, you need to have a very, very strong vision. I said, this is the film I want to make. This is exactly what it has to be like. This is what I want to do. And I'm ready to go to the ends of the earth to achieve this. At the end of the day, I just felt like it needed to be made.
Apart from storyboarding the film, which was a lot of fun, I would say the most fun I ever had was in the initial phases when I didn't know what it was, when I was just sitting at my desk and I had my upright piano behind my desk. And as I would draw that, while I would wait for the paint to dry, I would turn around and write a piece of music that was inspired by the painting I had just made.
And actually, is it fair to say you drew every frame? I drew 1477 individual cuts. Those are individual shots that you see in the film. And then within those shot compositions, I drew about 2500 individual drawings for the film. And then did a lot of the animation work alongside a brilliant team that we all trained ourselves.
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