Tina was a sweet golden retriever, named after the legendary Tina Turner. Her passing led owner Niall Harbison down the path of a new personal mission: to rescue and rehabilitate abused street dogs in Thailand, his adopted country. Niall captures the story of Tina and his dog rescue journey in his new book "Tina: The Dog who Changed the World." Niall joins The Excerpt to discuss Tina’s legacy and what’s next in the fight to save even more dogs while bringing about a fix to this persistent global issue.Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to [email protected] Transcript available hereSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Who is Tina and why is she important?
This sweet golden retriever is Tina, named after the legendary Tina Turner. Thanks to her owner, Niall Harveson, she's an internet celebrity, raising awareness of Niall's mission to rescue and rehabilitate abused dogs and street dogs in Thailand, his adopted country.
Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday, May 11th, 2025. Niall's new book, The Dog Who Changed the World, is on bookshelves now.
In it, he documents Tina's legacy and what's next in the fight to save even more dogs or bringing about a fix to this persistent global issue. Thanks for joining us on the excerpt, Niall. Thanks for having me. Niall, you wrote about hitting what's known as rock bottom as the entry point to your rescue work. Can you share more about that turning point for you?
Chapter 2: What was Niall's turning point in his rescue mission?
Yeah, I mean, I started my life in the corporate world and I actually escaped to Thailand when I sold my business. I wanted to sort of lie on the beach and relax. But unfortunately, I actually was an alcoholic and I nearly drank myself to death. So I ended up in ICU in hospital, really rock bottom, nearly, you know, literally nearly drank myself to death. And
I had to rethink my life completely when I was lying in that hospital bed. And I decided that my mission would become to save dogs if I was lucky enough to survive. And I did survive. And that's what I've gone on to do.
Let's turn to the namesake of your latest book. How did Tina come into your life and what was her rehabilitation like? Then you say she started a movement. How did that come about?
Chapter 3: How did Tina's rescue change Niall's life?
Well, when I got out of hospital, I actually just started feeding one dog, two dogs, literally on a very small scale. And it quickly grew then to the stage where I was feeding 80 or 100 street dogs myself. And we now actually feed 1,200 every single day with fresh food. But we also rescue dogs. And one day I came across a beautiful dog, Tina. She was on a chain.
She wasn't beautiful when I first saw her. She was... chained up, she'd been used for breeding, terribly malnourished, and she was close to death. So she kind of reminded me of myself. And I rescued her, which was tricky, but she blossomed back into the most beautiful golden retriever you could ever imagine. And unfortunately, it wasn't straightforward.
The damage had been done already with Tina and her kidneys were really bad. So she actually only lived for six months. But in those six months, she inspired me by not living in the past. And she really just had this magnificent outlook on life and was a wonderful, wonderful creature. And she inspired me to go on and do wonderful work in her name. And we're building a hospital
We sterilize, which is neutering or spaying 7000 dogs every single month. And we obviously rehabilitate more dogs. So a lot of that has been done in Tina's name.
You mentioned commenters on social media who often say, Niall, take that one home with you, but that you couldn't possibly take them all because it would distract from your mission. And just the numbers that you're talking about, that just wouldn't be possible. When did you know that Tina was going to live with you and be your dog?
Pretty much straight away. I brought her home the first night and we had this incident where she was incredibly skinny because she hadn't been fed. And it's actually a thing called refeeding syndrome. So I thought the best thing to do for a skinny dog would be to give her a big wholesome meal. Turns out that's the worst thing to do.
I nearly killed her because her stomach expanded with gas and really, really dangerous. So I made a mistake. She was in my apartment and she nearly died two days after saving her. So from that very, very early day, she was with me and we had a very, very close bond and she survived luckily. And we went on to have loads of time together, but not enough.
I still miss her on a daily basis, but her sort of being and just her presence has inspired me to go on and help so many other dogs.
How has the rescue operation impacted the communities that you work in?
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Chapter 4: What challenges do street dogs face in Thailand?
So I just said, look. His name's Wacker. So I wrote that down on the piece of paper. And then he started behaving. Once he recovered, he started behaving quite regally and he was quite proud of himself as he walked around. So he became King Wacker. So King Wacker now recovered, took about six months, and he's now King Wacker of Scotland.
Chapter 5: How does Niall's rescue operation impact the community?
He lives in Scotland with his family and he has a wonderful life there. So I think it's just part of the storytelling. And I think that's my favorite name out of all of them.
This work is moving, but I know that it can also be harrowing. How do you find resilience on very hard days?
I'm not going to lie and say, you know, I've got it figured out and it's easy. And it's not. It's really, really hard. We see dogs who've been shot. We see dogs who've... I've seen quite a few dogs poisoned. And seeing a dog poisoned is, you know, incredibly traumatizing. You see them taking their last breaths. Their legs are kicking. It's...
to see something like that is horrible, but you just have to push on and things like Tina helped me push on and the success stories, the whackers, the Brad pits, the dogs that we've adopted. I just simply get home broken some nights, but I look at them on my phone and the pictures of them.
And it, it shows me that, look, you can't save all the lives, but you can, you can definitely have a positive impact.
Now, you describe Tina's death in your book with these words, quote, it was by far the most profound moment in my life that I'd ever experienced, unquote. How did her passing change you and influence your work?
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Chapter 6: What is the process for rehoming rescued dogs?
That's a good question. I was really broken when it happened because it sort of lasted for about a month and I had three dogs die at the same time. My own pet, Snoop, Tina, and another dog called Derek. And I buried her. I stayed strong. I have to stay strong for the dogs themselves because when they're dying, you have to be there for them. But as soon as she, I buried her myself and
I just I remember screaming. It's in the middle of the jungle, but I patted the ground. I remember just sort of screaming into the air being like, I'm going to, you know, effing do something in your name. And just really just had a sort of a guttural scream that I was just like, this is I'm going to turn this negative into something really, really positive.
And that's that's what started the acceleration of everything I do.
Nile, the dog rescue and care organization you founded is called Happy Doggo. How is it different from other animal rescue and care facilities?
Chapter 7: How does Niall use storytelling in his mission?
The thing is with animal care facilities, I love anybody who's working in charity. I love anybody who's trying to help animals. One person adopting a dog is my hero because they're saving one dog's life. A medium-sized charity, large charities, we should all be working together because it's a common goal. I'm not going to be able to fix it on my own.
I think we do things a little differently in Happy Doggo. We're trying to
tackle the root problem and get at the cause of it and really make change in my lifetime for these dogs but i have so much respect for everybody who helps any type of animals and the more we can work together and change opinions and harass friends into adopting dogs rather than buying you know uh special dogs it's a real team effort to change the welfare of dogs around the world
Chapter 8: Who are some of the other dogs Niall has rescued?
You mentioned that it's your mission to rescue a million or more dogs. Is it achievable and what will it take?
Yeah, I think it's achievable. I think that numbers need to up it because we sterilize between five and eight thousand every month now. So that's a huge amount. Each one of those is an operation where you have to sedate them. the vets operate on them.
And that means that mothers like Tina won't have, she probably had 40, 50 puppies in her lifetime that were sold, but each operation stops that happening to 40 or 50 dogs coming into the world. So we're doing, you know, five to 8,000 of those every month. So that adds up to nearly a hundred thousand dogs stopped coming into the world every month because of sterilizing. So
I think a million is conservative. I think we can we can speed things up. Obviously, it takes marketing, funding, you know, logistics, really tough things like that. But I'll do it in Tina's name.
Niall, thank you so much for being on the excerpt.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Marie Green and Kaylee Monaghan for their production assistance. Our executive producers, Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts at usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.
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