Yahoo News Man who spends £20k a month on stray dogs shares story with Ben Fogle
Niall Harbison shares his life in the wild with Ben Fogle
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Recovering alcoholic Niall Harbison told Ben Fogle that he spends up to £20,000 a month to look after stray dogs in Thailand.
In the latest episode of New Lives in the Wild, which documents the journeys of people who have decided to live an alternative lifestyle off-grid, Harbison shared his astonishing story with Fogle and invited him into his home.
Despite living on the party island of Koh Samui, the dog lover has created his own wild life in the jungle where he has a dog sanctuary that houses 18 rescues and himself. Once a chef to the rich and famous on yachts as well as having previous experience of working in the heat of Michelin star restaurants, the writer was looking for more purpose in life and he found that with helping dogs.
Now the animal lover has devoted his life to his mission of trying to half the number of stray dogs in the world. Starting as he means to go on, Harbison has been feeding up to 800 dogs a day with the help of a team of volunteers on the island of Koh Samui including feeding 80 himself.
What, how and why?
But his great efforts come at a huge price as he revealed he spends between £15,000-£20,000 each month on everything for the dogs. This includes giving the dogs a shelter, sterilising stray dogs to stop them from having more puppies, feeding up to 800 of them each day and more.
Speaking about looking after the dogs, he told Fogle: "Just everything. It costs me between £15,000-£20,000 a month at this stage. I am happy to fund that for sort of the foreseeable future but there's a certain runway on that."
Fogle pressed Harbison further on the money as he questioned how long the social media guru would be able to continue to spend up to £20,000 a month on the dog sanctuary, feeding the dogs and sterilising them. "That money is going to run out surely?" He questioned. "£15-20,000 is a lot of money."
"Every penny I have I am trying to spend on the dogs," Harbison told him. "But I also don't want to do that for two years and the money runs out and then the dogs are all stuck. Not only that, I want to increase the sterilising, increase the food."
Harbison further explained to Fogle: "I'm trying to put my business hat on and think of a sustainable model. It's a bit of pressure on my shoulders. But I'm pretty able for it. Maybe I'm foolish, maybe I'm delusional. I can't do it. But I have to believe I can do it and I do."
The dog lover uses heartwarming social media videos of the dogs to get their stories out there in a way that captures the interest of people all over the world. Harbison explained the interest from others could then lead to donations or more volunteers.
What else happened on Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild?
Elsewhere in the episode, Harbison revealed he has given up booze after he went on a bender for two months and ended up in intensive care in hospital. He said: "I gave up two and a half years now. I had to go as far down as I could before I stopped."
Talking about why it had happened, he said: "A combination of things, middle of COVID, broken up with the girlfriend, and I'd been drinking heavily for awhile. I went on the mother of all benders. When I say benders, I'm talking like two months.
He added: "I ended up in ICU in hospital. I'd wake up at four in the morning with the shakes. I'd have a bottle of red wine and a valium... I'd always been an alcoholic if I'm honest but I think I was trying to kill myself."
Revealing what it was that drove him to change his life, he explained: "When I was lying in ICU, I wasn't thinking about being on a magazine cover for selling a business. I was lying there thinking about goals I scored when I was eight years old, sailing through the waves with my friends, obviously I was thinking about Snoop my dog. He's probably the reason I'm still alive."
So far in the Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild series, first cousins who fell in love have shared their unusual story and also the show has featured an inhabited island that 40,000 people applied to live on. For the first time this series, Fogle got tearful too after hearing one of the jaw-dropping stories.
