"In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer." — Albert Camus

We lost Fluffy today. After coming into us on Monday morning and battling with everything she had, her body gave up just after lunchtime today.

She has been rallying and I was elated to see her alive this morning and sat talking to her. I told her to keep this up and we’d have big plans for her. I dared to dream.

I was very cautiously optimistic that she might be over the worst. Sadly, I was wrong.

A Semi Dignified End

We tried everything in our power to save little Fluffy. She was with us for 36 hours and I never once looked in and saw her on her own. There was always someone willing her on, sitting talking to her, adjusting temperatures or just staring at her with hope in their eyes, gently pleading with her to live.

I won’t get into what happened to her here. I’ll keep that offline but the damage was probably too severe to ever heal.

The comments under this post will all be wishing me well but the medical team are the ones who battle and are hands on. Losing a dog always hits hard but everybody had a super soft spot for little Fluffy. She had pain relief, a name, the best medical care and a lovely send off. I’m not going to lie…this one broke us. No dog should die like this.

We Never Even Got A Nice Photo

I think we got to Fluffy about 24 hours too late. I saw such improvement in her in the short time she was with us. She even lifted her head this morning and sat up on her own last night. There was real progress but her little body started convulsing this morning and she left us.

I would never say I was happy to lose a dog, and she did have huge pain relief but maybe given the damage done, slipping away might have been her best option.

I wish I’d gotten to know her. I think she would have been a fun and excitable little dog.

Walk, Clear The Head And Write

When the news came through on my phone I instantly stood up, got my running shoes and went for a walk. I just dropped everything on my to do list and said I’d walk 5km to clear the head.

I had a mixture of fury, sadness, disappointment and just utter frustration bubbling up inside me. I ended up walking for six and a half hours because I didn’t want to stop until I felt utter exhaustion and pain. I wanted to distract myself and just put one foot in front of the other.

All I could think to myself was “Feck this world and the people in it”. Losing Bear a couple of weeks ago really hit me and this was the double whammy. We see plenty of death but there was something so hopeless and sad about Fluffy and Bear’s deaths that has hit me. You can’t really unsee the fear and pain in their eyes when you hold them up close.

I knew the walk would calm me down and I wouldn’t stop until I had solutions. It’s very hard to flip situations like this into positives but we have to try.

I came up with 2 clear actions to honor little Fluffy…

1. Creating Something Tangible In Fluffy’s Honor

Sometimes when dogs pass I am so moved and upset that I try to do something to honor their legacy. It’s the reason we have Alba’s kitchen, our retirement village and of course Tina’s hospital.

Even though we only knew Fluffy for 36 hours I want to do something to remember her forever. I thought about an area of Tina’s hospital in the emergency room and how it should have…

• A little Oxygen chamber to help future dogs.

• A special burns unit area to treat dogs in her honor

• A little tasteful tribute to her so she always has her place in our hearts.

If anybody wants to contribute to it you can here as part of the hospital fundraiser I am doing on September 12th. I’m sure Tina would be very happy to have a little Fluffy emergency area in there.

2. Creating Lasting Change In Fluffy’s Honor

Put very simply I’ve decided we can’t just go around picking up other people’s mess any longer. I purposely picked three dogs below who have fairytale endings and beautiful homes now. Sienna, Rocky and Bowie.

All three were dumped out in the streets while sick, dying and pregnant. We turned their lives around like we often do but we also lose dogs like Bear and Fluffy.

We have a meeting on Thursday to…

• Develop our education strategy.

• Choose how to allocate the budget

I decided today that we need to turbo charge that along with prosecutions for animal abuse and neglect. That will start happening in Q4 of this year. No more just picking up other people’s cruelty (although we will of course help dogs in need) but it’s time to get aggressive and tackle the problem at source. There are only so many Bears and Fluffys we can pick up at death’s door before our hearts break for good.

I also decided one smaller thing while walking…

• I’ll wait to share very sick dogs online until there is some better news. I don’t think people need to see all this sadness. In retrospect I should probably not have shared Fluffy until we looked at her for 24 hours. I was just so hopeful for her.

I wish I got to know Fluffy even for a couple of days. I have to be honest and say I feel very empty and sad as I know many of the team do.

I promise we will turn this into a positive and I’ll blitz you all with some happy news in the coming weeks. I choose the quote at the top of this post because in this world we live in helping dogs there is no other way to live.

Take care of yourselves.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

I try to keep the content upbeat and positive, hopefully a tonic against all the negativity and hate online these days. I believe dogs truly are the best creatures on this planet and they tend to bring out the very best in us humans.

Today I wanted to explain what is happening behind the uplifting emotional content and how 2026 is a year where by saying no to every distraction, we are building towards helping millions of street dogs.

“The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

— Confucius

Rolling With The Punches

In recent weeks we have lost Atlas, Tofu, Bear and a couple of other dogs that have hit us really hard as a team. Even though the law of averages means we are always likely to see great pain on a regular basis, it doesn’t make it any easier.

The reason we are trying to scale Happy Doggo as fast as we are is because there are millions of dogs out there who have no help from us. No dignity in their final days. No food and no simple medicines to change their lives.

We have a lot of wins but it is the sheer volume of street dogs in need that makes us need to push faster. Luckily we are making some big progress…

Tina’s Hospital

At Happy Doggo land right now the most amazing thing is happening. Tina’s Hospital is rising out of the ground in front of our eyes. Some key bits of info…

• We are 122 days into the build and it should take about 350 days. We are currently ahead of schedule by about a week. It could open as early as Q1 2027.

• The hospital will be 100% free to use for street dogs and low income community members. It will feature the best equipment, medical care and rehab facilities.

• The build so far has been funded by the book sales from the last couple of years and donations from the public. We have a big fundraising event in September to pay off the remainder of the build.

You see what we can do right now working out of a couple of shipping containers, so imagine how many dogs this facility will help.

Mobile Units

Our mobile units really are the beating heart of Happy Doggo that you don’t see on a daily basis but which help 1000s of dogs per year.

• Unit 1 has launched and is sterilizing 500 dogs per month in rural Thailand.

• Unit 2 will launch on August 17th and ramp up to the same volume

• Each unit has 10 staff with 2 vets, nurses, dog catchers, admin and drivers.

• The units reach areas where there is little to no support for street dogs.

The image below on the right is of a dog this week with Pyometra (a severe, life-threatening infection of the uterus). We’ve had 50+ cases like this in the last month alone that the team have solved.

Partners

Since day 1 of starting this mission we always thought the quickest way to help more dogs was to fund organizations who are trying to help dogs. By the end of 2026 we will…

• Have funded well over 200,000 sterilizations

• If you count at least 10 puppies per dog sterilized that is over 2 million puppies not being born into suffering.

• Fund 14 partner organizations in 3 countries that will sterilize 100,000 dogs in 2026 alone.

What we really want to focus on is building out capacity of medical teams and facilities. A perfect example is our vets below training with out partners Rescue Paws. We can’t solve the global street problem alone.

A Year Of Saying No To Everything

At the end of last year I sat down and planned how I would help as many dogs as possible in 2026. I decided it wouldn’t be by me personally scooping them off the streets (although I continue to do so when I can) but rather it would be by…

• Building a world class team at Happy Doggo

• Developing partnerships at scale

• Being super focused on all the “boring” stuff like logistics, processes, auditing, compliance, standards and hiring.

I don’t say the word “boring” lightly. I just mean that for me personally my love is being with dogs and helping them on the streets. Thats the part I love most. What I like doing personally doesn’t matter though, all that matters is that is what is best for helping more dogs at scale.

So what do I mean by saying no to everything? Well I get tonnes of requests and distractions on a daily basis and it just means saying no instantly to…

• All media interviews like podcasts, TV, Radio and print.

• Speaking at conferences, writing books etc

• All sponsored posts, brand deals, advertising requests (immediate no!)

• Any personal life pursuits

There are 100s of random things that pop up every week like opening a doggy hotel for people to visit, helping sterilize cats, people wanting to donate with crypto, TV documentary requests, merch deals etc. The list goes on and on. It might seem ruthless saying no to everything but thats what it will take to help more dogs at scale and that is all that matters. Complete and utter focus on the mission to scale and help street dogs.

When I sit down to write these updates they help explain…

1. The mission. I like to be open and keep everybody informed on what we are trying to achieve to help more dogs.

2. My own self doubt. There is so much going on that it can feel messy in my head. Writing it all down here gives me self accountability and reminds me what we are actually doing.

I had a look at the date today and thought to myself “how on earth are we already in August”. It means that 7 months into my promise “to say no to everything” and I feel it is working.

2026 is on course to be a transformative year for the work we do with street dogs. I can’t say I’m enjoying the day to day as much as I did when it was just me helping dogs but I know what my role is at this moment in time. I also know millions of people would love to be in my shoes and have the support we receive so I don’t take that for granted.

Stormzy came back for a lovely visit at the weekend. The small puppy with a brain injury is now a big healthy and happy boy. His visit came at just the right time as it is a reminder of what we do on a regular basis to help 10,000s of dogs like him a year.

Saying no to so many things is what means we can help so many more dogs at scale.

As I sat holding him it was amazing to think that 1000 miles away in rural Thailand a team of 30 people from Happy Doggo and the local government were meeting to roll our our latest mass street dog community project.

The next few months are going to be the hardest we’ve ever had in terms of scaling Happy Doggo and building out the team and our operations. I don’t know how we’ll get it all done but we will!

As always thank you all for supporting and being along for the journey. It wouldn’t be possible without you! Have a lovely week wherever you are in the world.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

What had me buzzing was Bear. He had a great day yesterday. There’d been a new sparkle in his eyes and after 6 days with us I could see a route back for him. He had even started eating by himself.

Then my world came crashing down…

So Many Questions

I popped my head into the ICU unit but my plan was to let him sleep. I’d go and feed the street dogs first but I just loved looking at him and stroking his head and whispering to him.

But he wasn’t sleeping. He had passed away. The body still warm. My heart sank. As the sun rose it had found a crack in the blinds and the color of his fur on his head was as majestic as I’ve ever seen on a dog.

I’d been prepared for the worst all weekend as he was so sick that he nearly died a couple of times. I spent hours sitting talking to him and telling him about my own battles in life. I told him how I’d only just met him but that I loved him. He could barely keep his eyes open but I always think a human voice helps a very sick dog. Like telling a bedtime story to a young child.

I wasn’t prepared today and was caught off guard. I thought we had turned the corner ever so slightly. As I drove off on the moped all I had for myself were questions…

• Was it always going to end up this way for Bear? Did I give myself and everybody else false hope?

• What if we’d found him 24 hours earlier, would he have survived?

• Why wasn’t I there for him at the very end?

• Could we have done anything differently for Bear?

• Why is this world so cruel for so many animals?

In time I’ll come to see we did all we could but when your heart is broken you question everything. At least he didn’t die alone among rubbish in his own poop in absolute agony like we found him last week.

1000s Of Bears

The natural thing to do mentally is to offset one death with all the good things we do for dogs. I thought about what we’ve done in the 6 days since Bear came in…

• 8100 Freshly cooked meals served to street dogs from Alba’s kitchen

• 2200 Street dogs have been sterilized by ourselves and our partners, stopping 20,000 new puppies being born into suffering

• Our mobile clinic has saved over 30 dog’s lives who had Pyometra with complex operations.

• We’ve treated dogs with cancer, a dog gored by a buffalo, dogs savaged in attacks and dogs with broken legs among many other injuries.

The photo below is actually an internal graphic I sent out last week to our medical team. We were all a little down after losing Tofu. No matter how much we do to help dogs it can feel like we are sometimes failing. I can’t explain how tough that is emotionally for the team. For every Tofu and Bear there are 1000s of dogs that get help every single week. Despite all the wins all I can think about is Bear.

Bear Died With Dignity

I’m proud of the huge amount of work we do at scale but to be honest the individual cases are the ones that stay with me. Street dogs like Bear often have nothing, so helping them at the end is as important as anything we do.

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” — Thornton Wilder

In the end for Bear…

• He had a name that I think suited him very well

• He had pain relief, IV fluids, advanced tests and the best of medical care

• He had a comfy bed, clean blankets and constant love and attention

• He had a little funeral this morning and a proper send off

My dream for Bear was a very short term one… I wanted to get a lovely bandana on him and get the team to carry him into the shade outside today. I wasn’t sure if it was medically wise but I just had an image of him being grounded with some nice fresh air, on his drip, eating his dinner and maybe some music playing. That’s what I went to sleep visualizing and smiling about last night. It wasn’t meant to be.

You can’t just celebrate your wins when helping dogs. It would be easy to just look at Rocky’s amazing new life, Espresso getting her mobility back or Skye in her new home.

It is however the losses that forge our character. The hard days like today are what build Happy Doggo into the organization it is becoming. The dignity our team shows to the individual dogs like Bear is what I hope will be transmitted to many and radiate out into kindness to millions of street dogs over the coming decades.

I only knew Bear when he was extremely sick but I could see he was a very good boy. His big soft eyes were like a glimpse into his soul. He had a gentleness to him.

Sometimes we can save dogs and sometimes we can’t. All I know is that Bear felt immense love, he felt important and he had great vet care. Most of all Bear had dignity in his last week on earth.

I’m sad but we’ll push on because there are many more dogs like Bear who need our help. I’m sorry the news wasn’t better. I’m off to try and distract myself by keeping busy helping other dogs because I know when I finally stop today and get to think I’ll be very sad.

I’m sorry the news wasn’t better. Look after yourselves.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

I’ll give you some context via some tricky dogs we’ve been helping this week…

Little Skye And Rod Stewart

We are inundated with sick dogs at the moment. One very special girl called Skye has just arrived…

• I found her on a building site with a damaged hip

• She is about 4 months old and had possibly been tossed out of a car

• She was about to die as she couldn’t move. Someone had been trying to save her with children’s medicine (well meaning but really bad for her).

• Locals heard her crying out at night from their house 100 yards away.

• Skye had been struggling with us humans. She pooped herself often when I carried her out of extreme fear. She was hiding in corners and diving into hedges.

And then Rod Stewart arrived.

He is a dog who was abandoned, has really bad heart worm and is generally incredibly sick himself. He’s also lucky to be alive and we found him just in time. Little Skye has latched on to him like her life depends on it. He is just what she needed.

Espresso Martini’s Life Hangs In The Balance

We were urgently called out to a dog in the community 12 days ago who was in a critical state…

• Locals reported she had been poisoned. She was foaming at the mouth

• We saved her by emptying her stomach but serious damage had been done

• We found a broken rib. We believe this happened when someone in the community bravely tried to give her CPR

• Espresso has not been able to use her limbs for 12 days.

• At least 10 people have been involved in saving her life to date.

You’ll see in the videos how brave she is but we aren’t sure how much she will recover. I’m contemplating sending her to the big hospital on the mainland to get more advanced specialist care but have to balance up the 12 hour journey and the couple of thousand dollar costs. We’ll do whatever it takes for her.

Enormous Daily Pressure

Alongside the dogs we save and the wonderful characters is the harder work that happens in the background. I’m incredibly lucky to have the amazing people helping with the logistics but as we try to help 100,000s of dogs the stress adds up.

The trucks needing insured. The huge 40 person team building Tina’s hospital. The 30 dogs on operating tables every single day and the complications involved. Detailed financial projections and audits. Training programs. Dogs traveling to their homes. Thai government paperwork. International banking. Websites and social media. The list goes on.

I don’t share those things to say how busy I am but rather to explain that I now get to spend less time doing what I love…being with the dogs.

The Moment Of Clarity - Rocky And The Chicken Pie

Luckily at the weekends I get a lot more time with the dogs. The Russian ladies who found Rocky on the beach came to see his progress yesterday with some treats for him and a home cooked chicken pie for me.

The dog that they found 2 months ago on the beach scrambling for his life, blind, starving and hours from death is transformed. Rocky was delighted to see them with his improved eyesight. He showed them his new beloved “Rocky’s Retreat”.

As they left and I sat down at the little office table and cut myself a slice of pie. Outside on the grass I could see little Espresso getting her physiotherapy hoping to be able to walk again one day.

The lady had explained how she made the pastry from scratch. The chicken and potatoes were buttery smooth and delicious. In that moment I just said to myself “Wow there is nowhere I’d rather be right now”.

I pondered to myself if you offered me a mansion, a Ferrari and $1 million in cash in exchange for my seat at the window would I swap it? I laughed to myself. Not a chance.

I cut myself a second slice and let my mind daydream about the dogs I’ve met here.

The Fleeting Nature Of Life

"Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present." — Albert Camus

Most people take their inspiration in life from other humans. It could be their family, religious figures, sports stars, entrepreneurs or celebrities. As I was sitting at that table I realized that I prefer to take my own inspiration from dogs.

Angelina’s devotion to her life partner Bob. Bowie’s amazing strength for her puppies. Big Mac’s laid back gentleness. Tina’s selfless and caring heart. The list is endless.

Dogs might be totally different creatures to us but in a world of so much hate, division and bitterness they are the perfect tonic. It might seem strange to try and be inspired by dogs and borrow a little of their best traits but thats how my mind works.

As I sat there eating the pie I closed my eyes and imagined I could hear Angelina’s singing. I visualized Big Mac’s big wet nose nudging in for one of his favorite head rubs. I looked left and could see Tina’s resting place out by the hospital. She’s not here herself physically but her presence is everywhere. As a pleasant light breeze floated through the window I ate the pie and smiled to myself at how wonderful dogs are and how precious life is.

You are probably reading this thinking…thats great for him sitting in Thailand with his dogs but how does this relate to me? I think there are 3 main takeaways…

1. Possessions mean very little. I won’t remember what model iPhone I had when I’m on my deathbed but I’ll always remember that slice of chicken pie.

2. Help each other. Espresso wouldn’t be here without the community. Skye and Rod are helping each other. Rocky would be dead if the 2 ladies didn’t step up on the beach to save him. It feels really good to help others.

3. Live in the moment. Life is fleeting. Dogs show us to forget the past and not to worry too much about the future. All that we have for certain is the here and now. Embrace it with full gusto like they do.

Maybe you are reading this with an ideal life, perfect health and all the love in the world. If so you are in the minority because we all have battles. If you have your health, treasure it. None of us ever know what is around the corner.

If you’ve read this far, use this message to treat yourself today and live in the moment. Go and have an ice cream or a glass of wine. Take an unexpected swim or switch off and watch a movie. Live in the moment. Create a memory.

Have a lovely Sunday,

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

I didn’t have a clue what I was doing but I as soon as I saw their pain I knew I had to help the suffering of these poor voiceless creatures.

The mission quickly evolved into “halving the number of street dogs suffering globally during my lifetime” and regular readers have seen the progress we’ve been making.

I wanted to explain how today is a day where we hope to take another huge step forward on this mission. But we need your help…

A Very Different Approach - What We Don’t Do

I never could have imagined running a charity back then and just how incredibly challenging and onerous it is. What we’ve tried to do at Happy Doggo is flip the model with unconventional thinking…

• We have never had a penny in government funding.

• We have never had a penny in grant funding from large backers.

• We don’t spend one single penny on outside marketing campaigns.

• No TV advertising, no billboards and no spending with social networks.

• Despite a huge audience and constant offers I’ve never done any ads or sponsored content.

Everything we do is focused on the street dogs and the way we fund our operations is via our community of dog lovers. I’ve always wanted to keep our focus “pure” and not be tainted by outside influences (like brands or advertisers). All we care about at Happy Doggo are the dogs and the overall mission. It’s why our team work among the dogs from shipping containers. We like to be close to the problem and remember what we are trying to achieve.

What We Do - Helping Street Dogs At Phenomenal Scale

What I saw in the early days helping street dogs appalled me. There was so much pain, suffering, cruelty, disease and death. I decided I couldn’t do something small and instead would dedicate my whole life to finding scaleable solutions to fix the problem once and for all. Some of the things we currently do…

• Fund over 170,000 sterilization operations in 3 countries.

• That work has stopped over 2 million puppies being born into suffering

• Run a field hospital and 2 mobile clinics treating 1000 dogs a month

• Provide freshly cooked food for 1300 dogs per day

• We fund 14 dog organizations in 3 countries in South East Asia

• Re-homed over 150 street dogs around the world

• Provide life saving daily operations and treatments in our hospital

The way I like to think of it is….We all fall in love with dogs like Rocky, Sienna and Stormzy and they put a smile on our faces daily. They are the individual dogs who help us tell the story of how the street dogs suffer. By telling their stories we can then help millions of their friends by doing more practical work like vaccines, sterilizations and life saving operations.

The 2 million number might seem abstract until you think that it is actually 2 million dogs like Rocky not being born into suffering. Thats what we have done but we need to really speed that up now…

What We Are Trying To Do

If I’m honest the sheer scale of everything we are trying to do right now is incredibly scary for me. Hiring the team, working on legalities and raising the money to make it all happen is daunting. In the pipeline at the moment we have…

• Building work advancing on a large hospital for street dogs. Will open March 2027

• More mobile vet trucks on the road in August and early 2027

• Fund the sterilizing of 10,000s more dogs via our partners.

• Deepen government partnerships and roll out our educational programs

• Hire team to start working on prosecuting animal cruelty cases

There isn’t one minute of my day where I am not thinking about how we can do it faster, bigger and more efficiently. The need for speed comes from the suffering I see daily and the fact there are 500 million street dogs in the world to help.

There is no option but to move fast. The dogs are waiting for us to come and help them.

A Big Ask For You Today

When setting up Happy Doggo I wanted to do things very differently for fundraising. There were 3 core principles I had…

• Show a clear plan to fix problems

• Be super transparent

• Don’t ask for money constantly with sad stories

That is why we came up with donation day which is today.

It’s a day once a year where we ask people to donate if they can. What really helps us the most is a monthly recurring donation. It can be big or small but whatever the amount it helps us plan in advance to help even more dogs.

We can do the work on the ground but with your donation we can do so much more.

If you’ve followed me long enough you know I hate asking for donations. I never do it but luckily people are kind enough to always support us. The normal happy content will resume tomorrow and you won’t hear from me again until next year!

The next 6 months are going to be incredibly hard work for myself and the team. I look at what we have planned and wonder how on earth we will do it but I can promise you we will.

I think people like donating because they are dog lovers and they would love to be doing what we get to do. I’m acutely aware of that and never take the support and backing of this mission for granted.

If you do support us today (or just share it if you’d rather sit it out) I thank you so much in advance. I feel like this is a team effort and that the tide is changing for street dogs thanks to your support.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

15 minutes later Soup called me to tell me you were gone. I’ve known it was coming for months but the air was sucked out of me. An invisible punch to the stomach. How could you be gone?

I know you are probably busy settling in with Tina, Alba and Big Mac right now but I wanted to write to you…

The End Came Just How You Would Have Wanted It

We spent some time on Sunday walking around gently together. I could tell you were very weak but I wanted to show you that the kitchen, storage sheds, offices and all your patrolling areas had been kept in good shape while you were in the hospital. We didn’t want to let you down as we knew how seriously you took your site inspections.

I noticed that you were slower back to your bed and how shallow your breath was. I hoped it might be the first small walk of yet another one of your famous comebacks Atlas but I now know it was your very last land inspection. Looking back, I think you knew too.

It wasn’t an accident you died at 9.15am today which is our busiest time when the team meets and plans the week. I think you waited for everybody to come in and be there, didn’t you Atlas?

I’ve Never Seen A Dog With A Spirit Quite Like You

The vets and medical team were as emotional today as I’ve ever seen them when they said goodbye. They were the ones who were with you when you kept beating the odds. You were more than a patient to us all. You were our beloved friend.

So many times over the past 6 months they have warned me to expect the worst but you always came through. We were nearly starting to take your comebacks for granted.

I think your battles would have broken most other dogs mentally Mr Atlas but then again you are not most other dogs. Every single day of your new life was special to you and I know thats why you fought so hard.

6 Months That Felt Like A Lifetime

People might think it was a joke about you being our security and doing patrols for us Atlas but I know you took it very seriously.

I think you wanted to protect us all because you never had anything in your life until then. I hope you enjoyed the total freedom of the land we gave you and how you could spend the day jumping from area to area doing your checks. I’ll never be able to look at that storage shed and not think of you.

I think watching you recently I figured you out. We all just want to find our place on this planet Atlas. Our raison d’etre. We want to find somewhere where we feel we belong. As I watched you bounce around in the last few months I saw a dog who had spent 10 years alone who finally found his people. You felt like you belonged.

You Witnessed The Good In The World

Just 10 minutes before you passed away I think you felt the joy and happiness around Happy Doggo as your good friend Dolly went off to her new life. It was one of those moments where everybody was buzzing with happiness. That’s what you felt at the end. There was a real happy vibe in the air. Maybe thats why your little body finally decided to call it a day? The perfect moment to go out on a high.

While you used to battle on the streets completely alone I think you fed off the positivity of seeing your doggy friends recover. You have been so sick at times it would have been easy for you to wallow in your own pain but you always set the tone of positivity at Happy Doggo land.

I am absolutely positive that some of our other sick patients looked at you and thought “If he can do it then so can I”. That was the effect you had on humans and other dogs.

You Were Everybody’s Dog

Even though you caught us off guard at a busy time, nobody broke stride for your burial. We were all in shock and incredibly busy but everybody just went off quietly and did their bit to give you a send off.

Your kitchen ladies prepared food. Your beloved garden team prepared your grave. The medical team cleaned you up. Flowers were picked. I didn’t even know we had a table cloth or so many seats but everybody just magicked up a little celebration. I think that tells you what you meant to us Atlas. There were no dry eyes.

I know people around the world will be sad to see you go Mr Atlas. There was just something about you that always put a smile everyone’s face. A little kind gentleman who didn’t have a bad bone in his body.

In a world with such division, cruelty and bad news you were a little ray of sunshine not just in our world but on people’s phone screens. You were the type of dog that never asked for a thing and who just radiated infectious joy. Even people 10,000 miles away could pick up on that.

You showed us all how to live in the moment. You showed that no matter what weight any of us might carry in life there is always a future out there. I told you about the messages people sent me who were also sick and how you inspired them. Imagine a little street dog from Thailand having that impact on the world.

There aren’t many creatures that can say they left the world a better place than they found it by just being themselves. But you did Mr Atlas. We all loved you dearly and I think you felt that.

I’m very sad tonight Atlas but just like you I’ll put a brave face on and keep marching on. You taught me that. Meeting you was one of the best things to ever happen to us all.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

It’s not been an easy week as moments like this make me question every single thing we do at Happy Doggo…

Apollo Had Just Beaten All The Odds

If you are not familiar with Apollo’s backstory, his was one of the most remarkable cases we have ever treated for so many reasons…

• We found him with half his face missing. He had cancer and the wound was being eaten alive by maggots.

• He was such a wild dog living in the jungle. It took us 4 attempts and 5 people to dart and catch him over the course of 10 days.

• Our vets not only saved his life but rebuilt his entire face in hours of painstaking operations and non stop daily treatments.

• Apollo hated being in hospital. He escaped once and walked the 10 miles home to where he used to live before we found him again. He bit me (innocently) and one other team member trying to escape. He was a street dog at heart.

Last week along with his guardian we made the decision that we thought was best for Apollo. He would go back home to live with his other 4 friends in the jungle were she had fed them their whole lives.

His nose was about 90% fixed. It wasn’t perfect but his carer was happy. Apollo was also delighted and after 3 months of being in hospital he sprinted back to his friends delighted to be free again. Below is the moment he went home to his lovely guardian.

He was thriving again but then barely a week later the heartbreaking news came through…

Apollo And His 4 Friends Were All Poisoned

The carer had gone to feed the dogs and found all 5 in the process of dying along with chickens in the area. Someone had laid down poison. It was her post that I saw.

While my heart sank and you are probably upset reading this can you imagine what it is like for the kind lady who feeds them daily and found them dying. Or the slow death and pain Apollo and his friends felt at the end.

I can’t explain how much this makes my blood boil and also how much it makes me question myself and all our decisions. I sat with Apollo on so many hard days telling him everything would be ok but in the end…it wasn’t.

Eking As Much Out Of Life As Possible

If you follow us on social media you’ll probably have an appreciation for the rollercoaster of emotions we face on a daily basis. We put a lot of effort into saving as many lives as we possibly can.

This week we’ve managed to give Atlas a couple more months with a big and complicated surgery. These dogs mean a lot to us. Every loss hits the team so hard.

It isn’t easy losing a dog and we know we’ll all face that day sometime in the future with Atlas and others. What makes things so horrendously hard is working for months to save a dog and have someone just so callously kill them.

I always think of the intention of that person going and buying the poison and planning it out. It makes me sick to my stomach.

Focusing On The Wins - Sienna and Dolly

People always ask me how the team gets over all the bad news. There are 2 main things that keep me going personally…

1. The amount of dogs we fund operations for around the world. We stop 100s of thousands of dogs suffering per year

2. The 150 or so dogs we have saved and who are in their adopted homes.

Sienna was meeting her new family this week (above) just 6 months after being totally broken herself. Little Dolly is also getting picked up next week. Seeing them both so happy and with our team who love them helps offset the Apollo news a little. They are examples of love winning over hate hate and we need as many of those as we can get to keep us sane.

Good Has To Win Over Evil

It’s been incredibly hard to keep the head up this week. I might be smiling externally but internally all I can think about is Apollo and the tough life and horrific death he had. No wonder he was so scared of humans. The obvious thoughts swirling in my head are…

• Was it my fault for sending him back?

• Why won’t the police investigate these incidents (we try believe me)?

• Is it even worth trying to change humans if they are capable of such cruelty?

• How will that lovely kind lady get over this herself?

It would have been easier for me to just say nothing and pretend all was OK with Apollo. But I think it’s important to share the battles we face.

I’d be lying If I said I didn’t lay in bed that night and think “feck this, there is no point trying to fix this problem. It’s pointless”. It’s like getting the biggest punch in the face.

So what is the answer? I’ve thought about it all week and the only thing I can think of is to keep showing up. To sterilize more dogs. To teach more people to be kind to dogs. To save the next Apollo. To build the hospital faster. To chase prosecutions even harder.

I think we did everything in our power to give Apollo a better life but it wasn’t enough. That eats at me. Just like there is a piece of Tina, Alba, Big Mac, Angelina and Valentina inside me driving me on there is now sadly a little piece of Apollo also.

I want to swear. I want to be angry. I want to be vengeful about it. But actually the only way to win is to double down on kindness and action in Apollo’s name. I promise we will.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here. It really does help.

Sometimes you need a little reminder in life why you are on a certain path. It could be a sunset, a great meal with friends or a baby’s laugh. For me personally the moments of clarity usually come via dogs and that was the case this week with Rocky and an exhausting work schedule.

So much came together in the last few days and clarity ensued…

An Individual Miracle

There are 12 days between these two photos. You don’t need to know a lot about dogs to see the difference. Rocky was hours from death, he was scared, he couldn’t see and he was lashing out. He knew his life was coming to an end.

Fast forward to today and I think you’ll agree he looks positively debonair, distinguished and more at ease. His health is returning and he is proving that it is always worth fighting for every single life.

While Rocky is positively thriving he is only the tip of the iceberg in what has been happening this week…

We Now Directly Impact “2 Million Rockys”

Saving one dog like Rocky means the world to me and I think his story inspires us all. He is however one of 8-10 million street dogs in Thailand. I want to tell you how we are helping so many of his friends…

Just this week we launched something that helps show the massive scale we are operating at and the ambition that we have. From the very first day of starting Happy Doggo as a charity I wanted to focus on 3 key areas..

1. Fix the root cause of the street dog problem

2. Get money into the hands of the people who need it most to help street dogs

3. Detailed transparency on where the money goes

We have achieved a lot of that with this new tool. Just by clicking around you’ll see the insane scope of our mission, the wonderful partners we fund and also the science and costs behind it all. Every dot on that map is a dog that has been operated on.

403,598 litters stopped and while the numbers might seem abstract and huge I always like to trace it back to one dog and their story in my head. Imagine how many Rockys we are helping that none of us will ever meet. This is very much version 1 of this tool and it will get even better from here in terns of what it shows and how much reach we have and funding we provide.

Government Involvement

We help street dogs a little with Happy Doggo but it needs to be more ambitious to make lasting change. While we are taking some good early steps to fix the problem, globally it will take a movement. We need the most passionate and talented people working for us, we need huge global funding and massive educational and awareness programs.

Most of all we need governmental support. This week we started taking huge strides in that area by signing partnerships to cover an additional large province in Thailand with our mobile clinics.

Look closely and you’ll see my big bald head in there smiling as the only non Thai person in the room. It’s a significant moment in our history but I also see a future very soon where I’m not even in the the next room. I’m a huge believer in local problems being solved by local people. My job is to ramp this up around Thailand and the world and then step out.

A Future Home For Rocky

I have a sore back from bouncing around Taxis in rural Thailand going to meetings to develop relationships and sign up government partnerships. I am genuinely exhausted from conference calls and admin.

While I am proud of what we are achieving all I can think about is getting back to Rocky and all our other sick dogs. I don’t know about you but I find when I travel I get some really good time to think and get some perspective about life. There is something about being away from home and staring out windows that makes you introspective.

I decided Rocky’s future on the road. While I can’t be 100% sure which option it is this is what I came up with in terms of preferences…

1. Rocky will come and live out his days with myself, Hank and Chance

2. I will build him a “Palace” in our retirement village to live in

There are some factors like his health, if my dog Hank would accept him and his continued eyesight improvement that will all factor into the decision. Either way and whatever his health trajectory is, Mr Rocky will live out his days in the ultimate comfort with love and treats on tap.

A Future For All Street Dogs

The thing about the street dog problem in Thailand and especially globally is that it is nearly impossible to tackle. The scale of the problem is just so immense. I’ve always said I want to fix it in my lifetime but I’m acutely aware that the chances of failure are probably 99%.

But you know who else had a 99% probable negative outcome? Rocky. As he lay on the beach hidden in the rocks his chance of surviving in the heat without water, with no eyesight and after being dumped was 1% at the very best. If the lady who spotted him had looked the other way none of us would have ever heard of Rocky

Dozens of people told me to put him out of his misery. His test results showed he was as good as dead. Yet here he is standing tall, eating well, improving by the day and now with great options to live out his days.

I can’t explain how hard it is to achieve what we do with street dogs and thing like the map and government partnerships. But if Rocky can win his battle then so can we.

As I stared out the window I also thought about the people supporting this mission. I still pinch myself every single day that I get to do this. I don’t take the support for granted. All I can do to say thanks is continue to dedicate every waking hour I have in my life to the street dogs.

I really hope you can feel the difference we are making and now you can see it and track it at all times here too. I firmly believe we are only 1% into this mission in terms of what we will all achieve.

I’m off home now via the organic shop to get Rocky his poached chicken and break the big news to him. I sometimes doubt myself and wonder if what we are trying to do is even possible. Looking into Rocky’s eyes and feeling him leaning into me reminded me this week that we are on the right track. Sometimes all you need is a 1% chance.

Have a lovely weekend and be kind to each other.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here. It really does help.

I’ve been battling with a rescue over the last 36 hours that has been physically challenging but also involves delicate nuance, a life or death decision and impact on our operations across Happy Doggo.

Let me tell you about the amazing Rocky and hopefully you can all help me with any feedback…

A Dog At Absolute Rock Bottom

I got the call yesterday morning from a kind local lady. Rocky had been dumped near a beach and he was stuck in the rocks. He had no vision, was wafer thin and was snapping at anybody who tried to touch him.

For about 4 hours I moved him between vets, trucks, Happy Doggo Land and treatment areas. It was massively stressful for me but even more so for Rocky. I could feel his heart racing and to be honest I thought he would die with me in the car.

At one stage I just started telling him stories about life as his situation was so bad I thought he might like to hear a voice as he slipped off into another world.

What Is Rocky’s Health Outlook?

It couldn’t really be much worse. When I tucked him in to bed last night it was 50/50 if he would even make it through the night. I couldn’t sleep and I winced as I looked into his little suite this morning half expecting the worst.

Rocky has…

• Probable glaucoma in both eyes. Causes extreme pain and he won’t get his sight back.

• Anemia that is so bad he can’t even be given a drip or he would bleed to death

• Kidney and liver issues

• Malnutrition (probably from not being able to find food and water as he is blind)

• Skin disease, blood parasites and lots of other little issues.

The vets were surprised he was even standing up. There are solutions but they can’t all be done at once. The process will be long and complicated.

Process, Capacity And Mission

The small hospital we run is absolutely rammed packed at the moment. We have 6 dogs in ICU tonight including a burn victim and little Maple Syrup below who is recovering from a stabbing. Much as we would like to save and treat every dog out there we always have capacity issues.

Like all hospitals we have to triage patients. Basically decide who gets treated and who doesn’t.

This update popped up in our Slack (our internal communication tool) this week. It is from Maddie who runs out sterilizing partnerships. The enormity of it nearly passed me by.

That number is incredible and it will stop over 1.5 million puppies coming into this world. The amount of time, effort, money and resources that takes to plan is insane. Sometimes stopping everything we do to help one dog like little Rocky massively impedes the mission. We do have to be strict and keep to our rules to remember the bigger picture. Help 1 dog at the end of his life or help 100s of mums in need?

Shouldn’t We Just Let Rocky Pass Peacefully?

It is something I get told forcefully in direct messages. “Let him go”. “You are being cruel by keeping him alive”. I find those very easy to ignore because I’m the one making the decision and the people with those suggestions don’t even have his medical results.

What I do have to take much more seriously is the mission. We are a charity with finite resources. We can’t just go around fixing every dog. There is one treatment (Blood transfusion) that will cost over $1200 if we go ahead with it. It would help Rocky massively but that same amount of money would pay for 25 dogs to be sterilized and change their lives.

So the answer is probably 80% yes, we should let Rocky pass peacefully and focus on the core mission.

Sometimes You Throw The Rulebook Out The Window

I spent the day with Rocky today trying to build up the confidence he needs to go through his medical procedures. Sometimes you have to go with your gut. I saw some little things today that told me we need to fight for him…

• Rocky was awake and waiting for me at 6.30am

• This might seem strange but he didn’t pee or poop in his suite. He was fastidiously clean in his little area. He waited to go outside. That’s not the action of a dog who wants to give up.

• Rocky is eating and drinking like a machine. I couldn’t carry the food and drink to him today.

• Once he felt at ease he craved human attention from me all day long.

I got him smoked salmon and put a bandana on him. His health outlook hasn’t changed massively but I wanted to make him have the most wonderful Sunday ever. His medical treatments, pain relief and comforts have started. I refuse to give up on him and if the worst comes to the worst nobody will ever take that Sunday away from him.

I know the odds are stacked against Rocky. I’m not a vet but I’d give him a 10% chance to be here this time next week as a gut feeling. He really is that sick.

I love thinking big and trying to fix the global street dog problem. But sometimes it is much more simple than that. It’s a connection between a human and an animal. If I don’t decide to save Rocky, he will die.

He hated the lead today and we struggled so much. It was only after a while that I managed to pick him up in my arms and I realized he loved that. He is blind but as his heart beat super fast next to mine and we struggled through the heat he felt at ease. His head sunk in and he trusted me. We’re in this together now.

We’ll try move heaven and Earth for Rocky this week. I told him this evening before bed that “where there is hope there is life”. I think he understood and he’s up for that. One day at a time.

Have a lovely Sunday and be kind to each other.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here. It really does help.

One thing that keeps me going is seeing people fighting back and this week an elderly Thai lady helped show us all the light…

Maple Stabbed In The Stomach

I got the call late on Tuesday evening with the photo below. A dog had been stabbed in the stomach and the owners were frantic.

When I arrived the next morning I could hear both the dog and a human crying and moaning in their little shack where they lived. The elderly lady who looks after 6 other dogs was comforting her beloved little baby. They both had shock and fear in their eyes. The lady lived the most basic life imaginable but apart from the stab wound her dogs were immaculate, well cared for and healthy.

With Maple in my arms I could feel the elderly lady gently holding onto my back and trembling. We couldn’t speak the same language but it felt like her emotions were a mixture of hopelessness, worry and relief all mixed into one.

In moments like that you don’t think about the bigger picture and instead it all gets stripped back to “how can I help this beautiful lady and her innocent dog”.

Maple is now getting the best treatment and although he wound will take weeks to heal and require an operation she will be absolutely fine physically.

She is so kind and gentle like her mum that the biggest worry is the confusion she has. Maple can’t quite understand why she hurts so much and why she is with us in hospital. She is safe but confused.

Not Just A Thailand Problem

One thing that bugs me is that people can be quite openly racist about the problem. The amount of people who say to me “Oh Thailand is so cruel to dogs”. There certainly is cruelty in Thailand but there is also immense kindness. Its an overpopulation problem here (estimated 7 million street dogs In the country) first and foremost.

I only need to look at some things that have come across my radar recently globally to show the dog problem is a global one…

• 3 million dogs being slaughtered in Morocco for the World Cup

• Beagles being tortured for animal testing (and brave humans trying to save them)

• 2.7 Million dogs enter shelters in the USA annually with approximately 217,000 dogs euthanized in those shelters.

• In my own country Ireland there is still a massive problem with live exports of animals, dogs are used for Greyhound racing and the puppy mill industry is off the charts.

Questioning Myself - Am I Just A Bust Fool?

My own rescue dog Chance was stabbed in the stomach about this time last year. She doesn’t live far from where Maple was found. Same person? Possible.

You can tell from the 2 photos that it was certainly the exact same outcome. Pain, loss of trust in humans and being doubled over in agony hiding in a corner.

Unfortunately I am beyond thinking “What sort of a sick person does this” which is the natural reaction. I’ve seen too many gunshot wounds, stabbings and neglect to know this is the norm and not the exception.

I’ve dedicated my whole life to fixing the street dog problem and spend my evenings researching things like the Theory of change and read every book I can find about creating lasting impact. I don’t have 1 minute in the day where I don’t think about how to help more street dogs but the suffering and the scale of it can be tough to take.

Seeing Maple felt like a kick in the teeth to the mission. A stark reminder of the world we live in.

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." — Robert Louis Stevenson

If you look at how much we do with Happy Doggo it’s mind blowing. The sterilizing we fund will stop over 1 million puppies being born into suffering this year. We operate a small hospital and are building a bigger one. We’ll cook and serve 500,000 meals for street dogs in 2026. We’ll save 100s of dogs like Maple.

If the street dog problem was 1000 Olympic swimming pools full of water then saving Maple would be a drop in one of those pools. Saving her life is completely inconsequential in the bigger scheme of things.

However when we gave Maple a special pass today to leave the hospital to see her mum I remember why I started this mission. You can see the deep love and devotion flowing between them. The lady has so little in life but then again she has it all now that she knows her beloved Maple will be ok.

Can the culprit be found and prosecuted? Is Maple safe to go home when she is fully healed? How do we fundraise enough to sterilize millions of dogs? Is education the way to change this? Should we focus on lawyers to help with prosecutions? Those are all the things that will keep me awake tonight but sometimes you just have to celebrate the win and the moment.

The pain and suffering we see can feel like it is too much. I know myself and other rescuers feel like quitting at times. It would be easier to walk away.

There are little moments in life that shape your outlook for years at a time. For me it came with that beautiful lady. I saw the inside of her little shack. Neat and tidy despite having so little. I saw her other dogs. Well fed, gentle like their mum and all healthy and well groomed. It would be easy at her age and with her limited means to look the other way and not help the street dogs. But she chooses to give everything she has to help the 6 dogs that she can.

If this lovely lady can do her part with so little then so can the rest of us. She certainly inspired me to keep pushing and never give up.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

Sometimes in life when there is so much darkness and division I find the best thing to do is just focus on the little patch in front of me. Try to make positive change in small ways.

“Saving one dog will not change the world, but surely for that one dog, the world will change forever.”

Prepare to smile. A lot!

1. Sienna Recovery And A New Life Beckons

• Just 5 months ago she was on the streets trying to survive alone

• She had been forced to have endless puppies

• Now she is fully healthy and her dignity is back

• She has a home and will travel to the UK next month to a forever family

2. Battling Cancer But Atlas Is Loving His Bucket List

• Was alone on the streets close to death battling cancer

• We have removed two huge 6 lbs tumors

• Atlas has been given the freedom of Happy Doggo land.

• He is working his way through his bucket list

• Promoted to chief kitchen guard. His first ever job in life which he loves

3. Chance Has A Lot To Smile About

• Chance was a street dog I fed for over a year

• She was stabbed 3 times in the stomach

• She was terrified of human touch and had totally shut down

• 8 months later she now loves humans and has fully recovered

• A kind person online sent her an Irish bandana and she can’t stop smiling

4. Apollo Face Rebuilt

• Probably the toughest medical case we have ever had.

• Apollo was a wild dog on the street who had TVT cancer on his face

• Maggots and the cancer had eaten most of his face. He was about to die

• For 7 weeks we have been curing the cancer and trying to save his face.

• He is cancer free and with the gap closing a skin graft has been done. His face has been saved and after a long battle he can see the light now at the end of the tunnel

5. Bambino In England

• Tiny Bambino was hit on and left on the side of the road in Thailand

• He had a leg injury and a hernia but the vets saved him

• Last week he packed his bags to travel to a forever home

• Just yesterday he arrived with his family and is out walking in England!

6. Sterilizing Across Thailand

• Just this week we will fund the sterilizing of 2000 dogs

• We are now rolling out large government partnerships

• We will fund at least 100,000 dogs this year. Stopping 1 million puppies from being born into suffering

• Our scale is ramping up in the rural Thai community

7. Summer Ice Party In The Retirement Village

• There is a massive heatwave in Thailand. It is the height of summer

• The older and the sick dogs have been struggling

• Today was ice buckets, watermelon and sausages for them all

• All of these dogs would be dead by now but instead this is their summer fun

8. We’re Building A Hospital For Dogs

• The work is flat out on site for Tina’s hospital now

• 11 months to go until it is complete

• The high end and sophisticated medical services for street dogs will be 100% free for the local community

9. Dolly Parton

• This old girl was out on the streets alone and close to death wandering looking for food just 6 weeks ago

• She is building up her strength and looks amazing

• Her fur and energy is coming back and she knows she is deeply loved

10. Iris Life Changed Forever

• Left on a short chain in the scotching sun and torrential rain

• Had been used for puppies and discarded to lived alone

• We fixed her medical problems and built her back up

• She now has a new family who take her on boat trips and spoil her non stop.

Just like everybody in the world we see daily challenges and I am very much sugarcoating the reality of our week. I could just as easily make a list of 50 challenging moments. It might just be some street dogs in Thailand but I always like to think what the change means to each of those dogs as they go to sleep tonight.

I hope some of these little stories put a smile on your face. If you are struggling yourself or have challenges maybe you they’ll help show that all is not lost in life no matter how bad things seem.

Wherever you are in the world I thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting us and being part of this journey. Without you we couldn’t do what we do.

Have a lovely weekend and be kind to each other.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

"If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward." — Martin Luther King Jr.

Here We GO! Tina’s Hospital For Dogs Who Aren’t Doing So Good

It’s been over 2 years in planning with world class architects and teams on the ground but today the build started on what will be a hospital for street dogs here in Thailand.

I guess it is pretty obvious in hindsight and I was completely naive but building a hospital in the middle of the Thai jungle was never going to be easy. We now have the land, utilities, permits, licenses, contractors, floor plans, MEP, equipment lists, a project manager and everything else we need.

I tossed and turned all night last night eventually getting up at 4am because sleep was beyond me as I wanted to see the start of what I had promised to the best girl there ever was. I had to pinch myself multiple times throughout the day…

Breaking Ground

With contracts signed and workers descending on the site today it was time for a ceremonial Thai blessing. The local monks, some special dogs, our team and a handful of friends celebrated.

It was a wonderfully fitting day and we all added tennis balls to the foundations and Teddy (a golden we rescued and who lives with my friends) even helped us dig. Suddenly this little patch of the jungle that Tina used to call home was ready and the bulldozers and workers starting rolling in. We shared the big day here on video.

The Field Hospital Is Running At Full Steam

I’ve stated before how far behind schedule this all is. I had no idea just how much regulation and red tape there would be. We also had to scale down the building as the costs were just too high for us to justify. While we have been delayed I was super focused on getting the field hospital running. Amazing things are happening there…

• In March we did over 110 operations

• Even today with the ground breaking ceremony we did 12 operations

• Lives (like Stormzy below) are saved here on a daily basis

• The service is 100% free for the local community

• We have an X-ray machine, blood testing and other new equipment

Our medical team are superb but they are doing this all from 3 converted shipping containers with one acting as a full time ICU unit. They are pulling off miracles every single day but they deserve a proper hospital. As do the dogs!

Build Time And Costs

The 2 questions I get asked on a daily basis! My plan with the costs is to share them exactly like we do with all major projects (like the Marathon fundraiser etc) in an open spreadsheet so everybody can see. At a super top level this is what we are looking at…

• 11-12 month build, starting today.

• Total raised to date: $437,780.29

• This includes over $200,000 as I donated every penny I earned from my book sales of Hope and Tina.

• Some major donors helped us already to get that number

• We still have well over $1 million to raise during the build process.

It is quite frankly utterly terrifying in terms of scale for me to process. The amount of money left to raise also seems daunting but my plan is something big later in the summer. Getting it started was the priority and it puts the pressure on me to do the rest.

The best way to help Happy Doggo in general especially now as we have so many projects is a monthly recurring donation which you can do here. It really helps us plan as a charity.

A Promise Made Is A Promise Kept

I don’t mind admitting 2 very key facts…

1. I would not have been able to get us this far were it not for Tina’s memory. I would have given up. I’ve no problem sharing that. The reason we are all here today is because of her.

2. I’ll do anything to keep her memory alive. I’m a 46 year old man but I still wear the faded t-shirt someone gave me, have her little bandana on my pillow at home and wear friendship bracelets with her name on it that kids gave me.

Building a hospital is impossibly hard. Doing it in Thailand with a different language and culture only compounds the difficulty. Trying to rescue 100s of dogs, provide food for 1300 a day, build out a huge sterilizing operation and raise all the money only adds to it all. Keeping my own mental health on an even keel and making sure I stay sober are more added worries.

But all of those things pale in comparison compared to the promises I made to Tina when she was dying in my arms. I told her I would change the world for street dogs in her memory. I would find ways to look after the forgotten mums like her. I told her less street dogs would suffer and it would all be in her name.

As myself, Hank and Chance drove down to the opening today in a side cart loaded with tennis balls I felt moisture in my eyes. It used to be a dirt track myself and Tina walked but now we’ve built a road into what will be her very own hospital.

Tina is buried near the field hospital and although she wasn’t there physically today she was still very much present. As the ceremony unfolded I could feel her in the sun beating down on us, she was the vivid blue jungle bird that swopped across the site and the cicadas making their unique noise. As I closed my eyes and listened to the monks chanting I could see her fussing over the puppies as we did our rounds checking sick dogs. I think she was watching us all today.

I used to sit with Tina on her drip for 5 hours at a time in my little house wishing she would live forever. I didn’t quite have the fully formed idea for the hospital back then but I do remember thinking “Wouldn’t it be lovely to have world class treatment for you Tina instead of me winging it with a drip hung on the door”. The seed was planted.

I talked to her a lot in those final weeks. She has been gone for over 2 years now but every fibre of my being tries to be more like Tina was and also create a legacy for her to offset the years she missed living on a chain.

In practical terms all we actually did today was dig a small hole and throw some tennis balls in it and eat some cake. I’m acutely aware that the real challenges are probably only starting.

But I’ll finish late tonight and I already know I’ll grab Tina’s little bandana and close my eyes thinking of her. I’ve been a little emotional this evening. I’ll smile and nod off to sleep telling her about the most exciting day of my our lives.

Thank you for all your support in getting us this far. I won’t let you down until this is fully done.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

It’s not an easy task and sometimes it can be a struggle to find the best best way to approach it. We know the things that work including sterilizing, medical care, re-homing, preventive medicines and education. Given that we are responsible for spending people’s money we often agonize over the best mix and how to approach the monumental task at hand. It often keeps me awake at night.

This week it was the sight of the little 2 year old girl below who gave me the clarity I needed but before I get to her let me explain the challenges…

The Hard Data

While we scale our charity there are some things we can track very accurately that we know drive meaningful and real change. The sort of things you can see right in front of your eyes.

• Field Hospital. We now treat dozens of patients every single week. Because of the vets, medicines and equipment we can see dog’s lives improving. Because of the work in our hospital many dogs have their lives saved.

• Mobile Clinics around Thailand. Our new mobile clinics are up and running and appearing around regional Thailand. Each clinic will sterilize 500 dogs per month. This stops 10,000s of unwanted puppies and ends endless suffering.

• Feeding 1300 Dogs. Very easy to measure because although it is very expensive (you can help by donating to the kitchen here) we know that every single day 1300 street dogs get healthy food into their bellies.

• 14 Partner organizations. We saw very early on that the quickest way to help dogs at scale was to help other organizations who desperately needed the funding. This program will fund 100,000 dogs in 2026 alone stopping over 1 million puppies being born into suffering.

There is absolutely no doubt that this work saves dog’s lives. If we spend $100, we can analyze it and see what the benefits are. With limited resources there can be some tricky decisions and heated debates about choosing one area over another but what isn’t in question is that these programs work.

The Softer Data

We re-home dogs all over the world and help rehabilitate some very extreme cases. These are the stories you will see on social media and are probably the reason most people follow Happy Doggo. Between adoptions, dogs I’ve shared personally and dramatic rescues there are over 300 such cases. Unlike the cold hard data above this is an area where the direct impact is less measurable but I believe significant…

• Attitude change in Thailand. Our Thai social media channels now have 1 million followers who see street dog content and we know that helps change attitudes at scale. We see that on the ground with locals reaching out to us.

• Billions of video views. It’s incredibly hard to measure but I know some people have adopted dogs from other charities, rescued their own dogs and even volunteered because of the content we share. I hear of these stories anecdotally.

• Word of mouth. I always think of the 100+ adopted dogs like Maximus or Stormzy here in Thailand or Matilda and Rusty in the UK. Forgetting about online just imagine how many people know about those dogs via their families. The pride they have in their dogs and the conversations sparked up in parks around the world.

I see this as the storytelling side of what we do. A story doesn’t directly save 1 single life but the ripples from these stories are hopefully starting to turn into waves around the world. Waves of change.

The Halo Effect - 10,000 Little Girls

So to the little girl. She appeared at one of our mobile clinic events this week, carried by her dad. She was obsessed with the dogs and the vets. She stayed for a couple of hours watching every single thing and taking it all in.

I could be completely wrong but that little girl being fascinated by the dogs has to have planted a seed. Maybe she’ll go onto be a vet one day. Maybe she’ll feed street dogs in her own area and seek out medical help for them. She might tell her friends about the doggies she saw and that they aren’t dangerous and should be treated with care. Maybe she has older siblings and the little family will talk about the kind people they saw treating the dogs while they have dinner.

Of course maybe I am just being naive and hopelessly romantic about a simple visual image but this is the sort of stuff that we have to believe in to change the world for all animals and street dogs in particular.

What I do know is that the law of averages has to start adding up. With our clinics, Thai staff and community work happening at scale there has to be not only little girls but 1000s of people of all ages seeing what we do. They will become a force multiplier for us. It’s a lot harder to measure than spending $40 on sterilizing a dog or fixing a broken leg but real change at scale has to come from 10,000s of people and not just from myself or Happy Doggo staff. We need 10,000s of those little girls all over the world.

There were probably a thousand things needed to get to that photo. Vets, licenses, medical equipment, trucks, funding, forms, permissions and all the other laborious tasks helped that dogs getting operated on. I can’t begin to explain how hard it has been to get this far with this mission.

That father bringing his daughter over to look at the dogs is the most pure symbol to me that we are on the right track to helping millions of dogs.

Have a lovely Sunday wherever you are in the world and as always thank you so much for supporting what we are trying to do.

Big Love
Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

Glance at your phone and the list of bad news is endless... War. AI taking all our jobs. Politics. Stock market crashes. Global tensions. Cost of living crisis. I could go on and on.

Working with street dogs also has it’s fair share of knocks on a daily basis but I wanted to share some stories today as a sort of antidote to all the gloom.

These aren’t just any stories either, they are picked because they highlight humans at their very best and they show us that the world is maybe not as doomed or as bad as our social media feeds on our smartphones would have us believe…

A Retirement Village For Senior Street Dogs

The wonderful team I work with built this on a small budget with lots of love, creativity and passion over the course of 10 days. We have 5 of the oldest and sickest dogs here and they were joined by number 6 this week when Mr Atlas got his golden ticket after having his huge mass removed in Tina’s Hospital.

It was crowd funded with people sending donations for flowers and trees. Someone even asked me if they could pay for a water feature!

I know scientifically they say dogs don’t smile but you do have to look at Anthony in this picture below and wonder. On the left was when we brought him in from the streets and on the right returning from a walk this week with his friends about to be served his dinner and have a comfy nights sleep.

These street dogs had nothing but pain and a sad end ahead of them. Some had cancer. Bridget fell off a bridge and a few of them are nearly blind. Now they know nothing but love and care. From the vets who treat them, the people who donated, their walkers and the ladies who prepare their food, it is humans who have done this.

Three Beautiful Little Families

We are very lucky to find homes for some of the street dogs. 3 of them recently landed on their paws and I spotted some little details this week that show humans in their absolute best light…

• Spock. He was adopted this week after recovering with us for 6 months following a broken leg. It was his third time being hit by a car on the street. When I chatted to his owner and asked him what drew him to Spock he told me he also had a broken leg with screws and plates in it. He could relate. Also that Spock had been waiting so long for a home. I thought that was just beautiful and Spock took to him immediately. Two good boys with their patched up legs!

• Bob. His new family have brought the joy back into his life after losing his beloved Angelina. He is now running, playing with toys and spoilt rotten. I met him last week and to see the love they shower on him was a thing of beauty. They’ve brought his confidence back.

• Stormzy. We all know his story of recovering from a brain injury and his wonderful new home. His family bought him a yellow plant like those on Hope Avenue so it would remind him of his time ay Happy Doggo as they both grow. Priceless.

Humans really can be awesome.

It Takes A Village To Save A Dog

This week saw one of the most dramatic rescues we’ve ever had. If you ever watch one video we’ve ever made I’d urge it to be this one.

• We spent a 8 days and nights trying to catch the dog. He was very wild and scared.

• His injury on his muzzle was full of maggots and getting bigger by the day.

• We eventually managed to dart him and catch him deep in the jungle

• Our vet team in Tina’s hospital not only saved his life by are also working on saving a large amount of his face also.

• We’ve diagnosed it as TVT cancer and he is in isolation in the hospital getting Chemo

I called him Apollo and his story is one that shows what about 15 people working together can do for a dog.

While the rescue itself is amazing some of the little stories of the lengths people went to save one dog is what blows me away…

• The catchers spent evenings and early mornings non stop trying to save him. It would have been much easier for them to give up and move on but they didn’t

• When we were racing back with Apollo I messaged the group asking if 1 person could come in to help as it was after 8pm. I arrived and 7 people had shown up. Our whole medical team.

The lady in the green shirt above feeds the dogs locally and alerted us to his case. I watched her break down and cry with happiness as we caught Apollo. She had felt powerless and unable to catch him as she walked miles every single day hoping to catch him but he was too scared.

This is a lady who is out there every morning and evening feeding street dogs when she has free time from work. She doesn’t have social media. She battles tough conditions and hostile locals to try keep “her dogs” all safe. There are people like her all over the world doing their little bit on a daily basis.

I could have picked 100 little moments like this or dozens of humans doing great things. Our smart phones and social media feeds love feeding us the worst news in the world but it’s worth remembering just how much good there is out there.

A little bit of kindness always goes a long way.

Have a lovely Sunday night wherever you are in the world.

Big Love,

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

As anybody who follows knows however, the ambition for this mission is to shoot for the stars. There are so many street dogs suffering around the world that need help that it can sometimes feel daunting or hopeless but I can now see real progress and I wanted to outline what the next 365 days look like…

Just A Dream

I always laugh at how naive I was starting this. I genuinely thought I was saving the world by feeding 20 street dogs kibble from a bag on my moped here in Koh Samui. I’d come home every evening and think “wow I’ve fixed the problem”.

What I quickly realized was that I was opening a giant multi layered Pandora’s box of problems that was much bigger and more complicated than I could ever imagine. But from small seeds grow the greatest forests.

10,000 Dogs

In the first couple of weeks I remember helping the dogs and thinking to myself I needed to come up with a huge number. I just picked 10,000 out of thin air and wrote down that would be the mission…to help 10,000 dogs per month. It was actually the very first name of this newsletter…10,000 dogs. That was before I changed it to Happy Doggo.

It’s pretty hard to believe but we now help at least 10,000 dogs every single month via…

• Alba’s Kitchen. We now cook fresh food for 1300 dogs per day from our kitchen

• Partner Sterilizing program. We fund some wonderful organizations to sterilize over 8000 dogs per month. This number will continue to rise this year.

• Happy Doggo Mobile Clinic. First one has launched with more to come this year. Each unit will sterilize 5000 dogs per year in rural Thailand.

• Tina’s Hospital. Every single day we are treating dogs in need in our field hospital with many lives saved per week. This will only expand as the year goes on and the big hospital starts to come online.

• Happy Doggo Content. This is the one I find hard to measure but with over 5 million followers across platforms in English and Thai I see lots of anecdotal of people adopting dogs, volunteering, sterilizing and generally helping dogs because of our content.

When you follow what we do you probably see one dog like Sienna having her life changed. That is obviously absolutely incredible for her but it’s important to remember there are 10,000 Sienna’s out there every single month being helped. It’s a very hard number to even get my own head around but I love it.

Keeping Promises

I find this email a really good format because it’s really good at keeping us honest. What I mean is that I’ll usually share large ambitious ideas and plans and because they are in writing I feel compelled to get them done no matter how short on time or resources we are.

Most people (including myself) laughed and politely told me to get a grip when in the early days we mentioned helping 10,000 dogs per month but we’ve hit that target. Not easy and lots of tears and pain along the way but that impossible target is now a reality that happens every single month.

Despite so much being done there are areas where we are lagging. I am acutely aware of these and they are a key focus to drive forward…

• Tina’s hospital is dragging. We have the permit, designs and infrastructure built. Shovels should be in the ground in the next 2 months.

• Educational Programs. In our budgets for this year to do a major Thai educational program. We need to change hearts and minds.

• Animal Cruelty Enforcement. We need to tackle the cruelty head on. It’s been tricky to get this sorted with local enforcement but this will happen in 2026.

In my own head I want everything done “Today” because I see how much the dogs suffer. Getting the permits, paperwork, logistics and hiring in place along with juggling funding and the day to day is not easy. But the dogs need all this to happen.

2026 - A Year Of operations

One common mistake that people make when following the dogs is giving me too much credit. Doing what we do now requires a team in Thailand and many people around the world supporting us (including you reading this!).

I always like to explain my vision here and while the last couple of years saw me do lots of rescues, writing 2 books, traveling to do dog walks, media coverage and crazy exploits like the Marathon, things will be different in 2026. My mind is fully on the operations of Happy Doggo. Helping more dogs at scale.

I feel like we have been given a mandate by people who support us. To help street dogs. I have to use that mandate to help as many dogs as I possibly can and this year that means getting into the trenches and getting the nuts and bolts working with our amazing team. That includes…

• Hiring the very best people we can find. You can do this without an awesome team

• Getting the best equipment resources and tools for the team

• Ensuring we are one of the best run charities in the world.

• Finding the funding to roll our the huge ambitions we have.

None of these are my passion but I always ask myself in the mirror each morning “Is this the best thing I can be doing to help the dogs today”. At the moment behind super focused on the nitty gritty is what it takes to answer yes to that question!

Atlas Proves We Can Move Mountains For Individual Dogs

If you follow us on social media you might have seen Atlas having his life saving operation. It truly was a small medical miracle that after 2 months of prep and under the careful watch of our medical team he made it through alive.

He is only one dog out of those 10,000 helped every month but I think he is very symbolic in that he was operated on at our field clinic on Happy Doggo Land. To make that happen some of the things needed were…

• The talented team of vets and support staff

• The advanced medical equipment and clinical setting

• The electric, water and other utilities in the middle of the jungle

• The hospital permits and local laws followed

• The funding in place and reporting on charitable activities

• The buildings and support staff for his post care recovery

Sometimes I feel like we are moving too slow but if you had told me 1460 days ago that we would be doing something like this I wouldn’t ever have imagined that.

There were probably about 50,000 tiny actions from signing contracts, hiring teams, buying trucks and even planting the flowers on Hope Avenue to get to where Atlas is today. Those same little steps help us treat the next dogs (there are 8 operations scheduled for tomorrow alone).

100,000 Dogs A Month?

I’m CEO of Happy Doggo and the best use of my time would be sitting behind a laptop or in meetings and calls all day. I do a lot more of that now but my heart is still with the dogs on the street. The reason I still feed them every morning and help to catch dogs and do rescues is not only to keep me close to the problem but because I am at my happiest with the dogs.

I am holding Mr Fox below who was the very first dog I ever sterilized at the local vets. If you had told me then that 3.5 years later in 2026 we would be funding over 100,000 sterilizations a year I would have laughed at you. Same with all the other wins we have had for the dogs.

It’s not a concrete goal but if we got to helping 10,000 dogs this fast it makes me think we can get to 100,000 dogs per month in the next few years. It might seem impossible to 10X something like that now but we have to keep shooting for the stars. The dog’s lives depend on it.

I hope this gives you a good picture of where I see things heading. I like to always try and be as upfront and honest about our wins and our struggles. Doing all this really isn’t easy but thanks to the support we have around the world we can do so much. Many of these dogs really are voiceless but we are starting to shift the tide in their favor.

Thanks as always for following along, it means the world to me.

Big Love,

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

“Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”
— Ancient proverb

“Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.”
— John Heywood

Quotes are one thing but what does the progress on the ground actually look like…

Some Huge Numbers To Close 2025

The individual dogs are what we all love but there is a bigger picture and it all comes down to the numbers…

• 440,000 Freshly cooked meals. Ever since it opened in March Alba’s kitchen has been flat out cooking for the street dogs. We use the freshest ingredients and provided nearly half a million meals to feeders, shelters and volunteers this year.

• 40 Dogs Adopted. We have managed to change 40 little lives forever this year connecting them with homes around the world. Countries included Germany, USA, Ireland, Spain and of course Thailand.

• 85,000 Sterilizations funded. I remember taking the dogs to the vets myself in 2022. I managed to get 302 dogs done that year and I thought it was amazing. This year thanks to our partners we have funded over 85,000 dogs which takes us to an all time total of over 135,000. To put that into a little perspective that has stopped well over 1.5 million puppies being born into suffering.

• 1 Field Hospital and 1 Mobile Vet Unit. This was the year where we started treating 100s of patients ourselves. That was in Tina’s field hospital as well as our new mobile unit which launched this month. We have teams of vets and medical professionals treating dogs at scale now and that feels incredible.

Tina’s Hospital Permit Secured

Step into Happy Doggo land and one dog’s loving embrace is felt everywhere. Indeed from the moment I wake up each morning and my feet touch the floor I’m already thinking about Tina and her legacy.

Huge news as in the last couple of days we have finally gotten our permit to build the hospital. This has been a massively elongated task but along with the road we’ve built, the electric transformers and flood protections it means the hospital is becoming reality. Obviously I wished this had been secured faster but the amount of effort, planning and logistics that have gone into this has taken up a huge portion of 2025.

5 Years Sober

Exactly 5 years ago today I was admitted to ICU. I had tried to drink myself to death and very nearly succeeded. I spent 3 days there and although it would be over a year before I found this street dog mission in 2022 it was in that hospital bed that I decided to change everything.

I don’t bring this up for sympathy or kind comments but rather to try to inspire others. Sometimes I think I should just keep it to myself and focus on more charity related issues but as Happy Doggo has grown so have the followers who seek help and inspiration in their own lives and those of their loved ones.

I think we can see ourselves and many of our lives in the dogs we share. Maximus is a great example. He was chained up and about to die alone and sad. Just like me in the hospital bed he was always dreaming of a new life and luckily we helped him find it…

Myself and Maximus are here to tell you that there is always hope in life. Having him surprise me at the Marathon with his new loving owners left me speechless.

Look how awful me and him look in the first photos. How bad our lives were. The eyes tell you everything. But life has a way of surprising us all. Just like the dogs us humans are way more resilient than we could ever imagine. If you or somebody you know is struggling in life just take it from me and Maximus… Things can change for the better in 2026. Don’t ever give up.

2026 Looks Big And Scary

As I sit here writing this I have to say that the year ahead absolutely terrifies me. The amount of dogs we are going to try help and the funds we have to raise are insanely big. I’m so scared and nervous (in a good way) about it all but this simply has to be done to tilt the odds in the favor of the street dogs. Next year…

• The Hospital will open

• Several mobile vet units will hit the road

• We will aim to fund over another 100,000 sterilizations

• The team will more than double in size across several countries

• 1000s of dogs will be treated from Happy Doggo Land

• Several government partnerships will launch

• The other amazing things already happening in 2025 will continue and accelerate.

I’m making lists, plans and targets here on NYE as I hear the parties starting and will be up at 5.45am to open Happy Doggo land. 2025 was good for the street dogs but 2026 will be even better.

My Highlight Of Of The Year

While the big plans are exciting what makes me happiest is the photo below. It is Mr Handsome one of the street dogs I have fed for nearly 4 years now getting his serious wound cleaned today by Siri after 2 visits to Tina’s hospital.

This year I have written a best selling book, hand endless media coverage, met important people to talk about dogs and traveled the world. Without being flippant about those things they are just a means to an end. A way to help more dogs.

My happiest moment came on the last day of the year still being sober, having a wonderful team and helping street dogs in person.

I love Mr Handsome so much and sang him a little song for 5 minutes while waiting for the treatment to arrive just us two sitting in the sun to relax him. Thats pure happiness for me.

This has been a good year but it is just a drop in the ocean of what needs doing to help street dogs. We are not even 0.1% into this mission yet in my head. Things really need to speed up even further in 2026 and while that will be challenging I’ll give it everything I have.

To those who follow along and support as I always say I will never be able to thank you enough. This is your mission as much as it is mine. I can do a little bit with the team but with all of your support we are changing the world for street dogs and will continue to do so.

Take care of yourselves, take it easy on each other, be kind to animals and thanks for everything. I never take it for granted.

Big Love,

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

Kind people send me the messages nominating their mums, best friends or work colleagues who follow me and the dogs. I always think I have it tough with dog issues and managing my mental health but a quick look through the messages reminds me just how brutally tough this time of year is for many.

Life or death. Addiction. Extreme worry for family and friends. Loneliness. It is a time of year where all out problems are accentuated and magnified.

Life Isn’t What You See On Instagram

Open your phone tomorrow and you’ll see footballers and celebs in mansions with their families dressed in matching pyjamas.

There will be an abundance of presents, new designer gear and big tables of food in your apps from people you know. All that stuff is lovely and it should be celebrated but I know the pressure that content puts on a lot of people.

This is a really hard time of year for so many but it’s worth remembering that nearly everybody out there is putting up their best facade. Life is so much harder than what we share online. This is true during the holidays but also throughout the year.

You might follow me and see a 60 second happy video of a dog with nice music but that is a snapshot of their life. I’ve presented them as well as I can and help them as much as possible but just like humans the struggle is real and it is a daily one.

Tilting The Scales Towards Kindness

It would be easy to look at the world and think everything is bad. The algorithms and news channels feed us sad and divisive content because they know it keeps people enraged and engaged.

In my own world of rescuing dogs I see constant cruelty and neglect towards animals. It would be easy to focus on the dogs I’ve seen shot, stabbed, starved and dumped this year but the only way to change the world is by focusing on kindness.

For every human who keeps a dog on a chain like Maximus there is another out there waiting to take a chance on a forgotten dog. To make him part of their family and show him love and be his hero.

It’s a great time of year to remember to help others. A 15 minute cup of coffee, a little text message or even a simple smile could make someone’s whole holidays. If you can tip a little more try to do so. Say hello to someone in the park. Swallow your pride on an issue. Presents will be quickly forgotten but kind actions could be remembered for a lifetime.

Life Comes With Ups And Downs

I have been at rock bottom myself at Christmas before. I’ve sat alone drinking bottles of vodka with my phone switched off in a dark room on the big day itself. 5 Years ago just before I got sober I tried to drink myself to death. I nearly succeeded.

What Is super important to remember is that you can always make comebacks no matter how bad things seem. Look at Prince and Bowie the huskies who we found last year abandoned by owners in the Thai heat. Bowie was pregnant and Prince had been so hungry his stomach was full of sand and rocks he had eaten. You couldn’t find 2 dogs at a lower ebb.

Fast forward 12 months and here they are looking utterly spectacular and loved in their forever homes in Germany and Wales respectively. I didn’t ask their families to send me photos, that’s just what their lives now look like!

I tell my own, Bowie and Wynter’s (Prince’s new name) stories to show people that comebacks are always possible in life for both dogs and humans. You might feel a bit rubbish, lonely, sad or down right now but there is always hope. If you only take one thing from this email please make it be that there is always hope.

The festive period is seriously hard for people. I look around today and I see huge groups of people drinking Champagne at lunchtime and sipping cocktails on the beach. Everybody seems to be laughing and having the time of their lives.

The easiest thing to do as an alcoholic would be to go and join then! The voice in the head is always there…”Oh you’ve done so well this year saving dogs Niall, a couple of beers is the least you deserve and nobody will never know”.

That’s why I’m out doing as many rescues as possible today. It’s why I’m writing a Substack at 10pm on Christmas Eve. It’s why I’ll spend Christmas morning making 200 personalized videos for people to wake up to. I am purposely keeping myself busy and away from areas of temptation.

But I also realize just how lucky I am. I have my purpose and my calling in life. I know precisely just how many people out there are sad right now. Those hiding behind pained smiles. People having a couple of pills to get through a family meet up. The people who know deep down they have addiction issues. The people worried sick about their health or that of a loved one. Those with crippling grief. The list of struggles is endless.

Please just remember you are not alone. Not only have I struggled in the past but right now there are millions of people just like you having a hard time. It is to every one of you that I wish you have some peace if at all possible. It doesn’t always have to be a Merry Christmas or a Happy Holidays. Sometimes you just need to get through it and thats fine too!

From me and the dogs, I send you all huge love from the bottom of my heart for supporting us this year.

Big Love,

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

I always thought of it as the peak of life. The moment when we had that innocence and joy that only youth can bring. As I grew older the holidays became a darker period for me personally fueled by time alone, drinking binges, black outs and me breaking promises to myself and others. The juxtaposition couldn’t have been more stark.

After 25 years of addiction I find myself now back in a place where I love the festive period again because it is a time when the dogs need us the most…

Juggling 28 Dogs At Tina’s Hospital

Walking around Happy Doggo land today was like entering some sort of war zone for dogs. The whole place was a triage site with street dogs in all shapes and sizes needing help.

Just like in human hospitals the festive period is one of our busiest. The island is packed with holiday makers, people are day drinking and the net result is always bad outcomes for dogs. Road accidents, cruelty and neglect spike for dogs in the next 2 weeks. A sample of cases today included…

• A dog from my feeding route had his ear sliced off

• Sybille had one of her dogs getting an amputation with us

• We picked a boy up with 2 broken legs sticking out like drumsticks who was in agony

• We brought 9 dogs in for sterilizing

• 2 Small procedures happened

• We have ongoing treatment for 5 dogs in very serious conditions

The hospital and dog catching teams were so busy there were makeshift tables being set up and dogs being stored everywhere we had space. Slightly traumatic to see it in person but also amazing to see the talented teams saving lives all day long.

Transformations Happening Daily

There are so many dogs we help now that I can’t share them all. If you look at the pictures below you’d probably wonder how on earth a dog ended like this. The reality is that is the only picture I can show without shocking you too much. Her story is complicated…

• The little girl had tumors all around her eyes and mouth.

• She had been treated by a number of vets but nobody could figure out what was wrong with her

• She came to us close to bleeding to death. Her guardians were beside themselves with worry and nearly out of options

• Our wonderful vet Dr Singha diagnosed it as TVT cancer. You might remember McMuffin who had the same.

• She has been getting chemo with us for 3 weeks now and will fully heal.

The scenes of her nearly bleeding out and being in agony with her owners looking on helplessly were heartbreaking. To see her getting treated by our team today and and recovering was a thing of pure joy. This is always what Tina’s Hospital was for.

A Total Game Changer

My joy has been immense this week because of the scale we are starting to achieve in helping dogs. Happy Doggo has always been about the island of Samui and working with partners in 3 countries. But last week we rolled out or first mobile dog clinic on the neighboring island of Koh Phangan…

• 10 Staff working on our first ever mobile clinic

• This was all funded by the Marathon by our online community

• All equipment, medicines and trucks were operational for the week long test

• We worked with the local government

• 55 Dogs were sterilized as a test.

This was our pilot scheme to get our staff, processes and equipment up to speed. I have to say It was a pinch myself moment seeing the well oiled operation working so well and changing so may dogs lives. It will hit the road full time in 2026 and will sterilize 5000 dogs. 100 per week. Incredible.

The last time I felt this happy? Christmas morning as a little boy.

Squeezing Every Last Ounce Out Of A Very Long Year

The end of the year is usually a time of self reflection. My life revolves 100% around dogs and nothing else, so that is the only metric I judge myself on.

I could look at things like writing a book, running a Marathon or traveling around the globe twice in 2025 but to be honest those were all torturous. They were a means to an end and that end was to save more dogs and further the mission.

When I think of the wins this year I think of Chance, Stormzy, Maximus, Panda, Thumper, Bob and all the others. Or the dogs who didn’t make it but had such dignified last chapters like Big Mac, Alba and Angelina.

Saving any dog gives me the same feeling I had as a young boy on Christmas morning. I know in the 2 weeks left in the year there is at least another couple of dogs who will need our help and finding them will be the gift I want most for myself.

Every Life Transformed Is Like The Greatest Gift Ever

I could tell you about the 85,000 dogs we have funded sterilizing for this year. The hospital treatment numbers. The quarter of a million meals we have served to street dogs.

Theres a long list of things we have done to help street dogs but for me it is always the individual stories.

Meatball called into see us this week with his new owners and look at that smile. It’s the exact same spot and smile as Stormzy has. Both of them could be dead by now but here they are. There is no price you could put on that. You could offer me a private jet or a mansion as a present instead and I’d say no. This is why we do it.

I’m not going to lie and say everything is perfect and just see the world through rose tinted glasses because of the time of year. The challenges are immense. Myself and many of the team are drained. We know there are tough weeks ahead. We lose some dogs along the way. We aren’t even 0.1% into this mission globally yet.

But as I write this and look at photos of dogs I find myself thinking of the little boy who always lay dreaming of having a dog one day. Or the big man who sat alone in an apartment with a bottle of gin crying with a plain cheese sandwich on Christmas day. I don’t think either of those could have imagined I’d be lucky enough to be here helping dogs and being supported by so many doing so. Just like the dogs show us anything is possible in life.

I know its not an easy time of the year for everybody. Look after yourselves and others who might need a check in. I genuinely have been there and know people reading this are dreading the coming days. I’m thinking of you. You can do it.

To anybody out there who has supported this year with our mission to help street dogs thank you from the bottom of my heart. You help make me feel like the little 8 year old boy at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning expect I get to feel it every morning now helping street dogs. Thank you.

Big love to you all.

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

I had to dig deep into a very deep part of my mind and think of Alba to help me finish but I also knew just how much was riding on it given what we have happening at the moment.

In some ways 2025 as a year is very like the marathon. It’s not physical pain closing the year out but rather a huge mental mountain to overcome. The task of juggling so many balls and trying to pull off a series of seemingly impossible tasks simultaneously isn’t easy but all I keep thinking about is the amount of dogs we are helping and will help in the future…

Tina’s Hospital Big Updates

After a major re-design and scaling back of the project (because we were wildly over budget) we have now started making some huge progress on the hospital…

• We just submitted our detailed hospital plans to the local planning authorities

• Building a full concrete road into the site this week

• Running full electric power into the land strong enough to power a hospital

• Equipment orders placed for things like X-Ray machines and Ultrasounds

• Our first 2 vets hired along with 3 support vetinary staff

I think with any project this size it is always normal to think “What have I started here” and to generally doubt yourself. I can safely say with absolute certainty that were it not for Tina and her memory I would have scaled it back and settled for something less impactful. Without her memory, I might even have given up.

It feels like it has been an endless 18 months of meetings, planning, raising money, getting permits, hitting obstacles and generally struggling to get this built. I 100% underestimated the challenge of building a large hospital for dogs in Thailand.

What we now have though is progress and the start of building work. Tina’s hospital is starting to come to life right in front of our eyes and it feels incredible.

Individual Dogs That Make Us All Smile

It’s hard to believe but I barely know half the dogs who now pass through Happy Doggo Land. That is a mixture of me being so stretched but also because of the sheer volume we treat, provide life saving care to, re-home and our short term patients.

Along with feeding my own 80 street dogs every morning I try to keep close to the dogs because it reminds me of the problems we are trying to fix. I only need to take a look at Sienna 2 weeks after she came in to remind me of the difference our work can make. Her smile coming back is all the motivation I need…

The dog that really sums up what we can do best is little Stormzy. We’ve all been captivated by his brave little character and his improbable recovery.

I just love the fact that we have full time vets, medical care and everything he needs on site. Stormzy was told he had to be put to sleep before he came to us. To see his little personality is a daily reminder of why we do this.

Mobile Clinic Launch

The main reason for running the Marathon was to fund a mobile vet clinic for dogs. We hit the target in record time and it is all happening…

• 6 of the team of 10 have already been hired

• The trucks and equipment have been bought and delivered

• We will launch next week on the 8th December on the neighboring island of Ko Pha Ngan

• Our team will be sterilizing dogs there during our pilot phase

• The mobile clinic will move to the mainland and sterilize 5000 dogs in 2026.

While running the Marathon was hard and it provided the funding, the true challenge is the team on the ground getting this live in record time and making it happen. It’s one thing raising the money but another getting it spent properly, having tracking and making sure we have the best staff and medical procedures. We’ll be operating on the ground next week and positively impacting dog’s lives.

Moving Incredibly Fast And Unexpectedly

With so much going on it felt like there wasn’t a spare second in the day but last week we had to drop everything because of a huge emergency. As you may have seen in the news there was catastrophic flooding in Thailand. The worst of it was only 6 hours from us. We were able to move very fast…

• We got our new mobile units into operation earlier than expected

• The team came together to buy 2 tonnes of food and dog supplies

• We drove it there to be handed out to those in need within 20 hours

One thing that has been important to me at Happy Doggo since day 1 is the speed at which we can get the help to dogs who need it most with the least amount of bureaucracy possible. This was Happy Doggo in action and at our very best.

Personal Struggles

The Marathon a couple of weeks ago was a bigger success than I could ever have imagined but I have to say it has absolutely wiped me out. The year as a whole and constantly trying to scale has pushed me to the edge of exhaustion.

As well as what I have outlined above we have the 1250 dogs we provide food for daily, the 7000 dogs we fund sterilizing for through our partners as well as our adoption and awareness programs. There is very little left in my personal gas tank but I can see all the strands coming together and one last push is needed.

My own friends and family are asking why I won’t answer messages. People I know on the island are asking if they’ve done something to annoy me as I’ve vanished into work more than normal. I am bouncing from meeting to call, to dog emergency to government meetings to funding calls and sleeping very little. Everything is at full tilt right now and I feel like I have aged a decade in the last year but the stakes are so high for the dogs. There are 1000s of Stormzy’s and Sienna’s out there who need our help.

While the help we give to dogs is very real now and scaling up I have to say that none of this feels real to me. I always dreamt of helping this many dogs but just like when my body was seizing up at 36km in the Marathon I feel like one last push is needed in 2025 to bring all these strands together.

It doesn’t matter how it happens or how tired I am personally. Next week we’ll have a mobile clinic on the road. The hospital is being built. We help 10,000 dogs a month directly and through partners. There were 5 operations today and 4 tomorrow in the field hospital. Looking out the window concrete is being poured. Everywhere I look there is action.

As always, I cannot say thank you enough for the support. When I finish my day I lay in bed and read some comments and smile because none of this is possible without the support online. I don’t usually have any energy left to answer more than one or 2 but please just know that I appreciate all the support and pinch myself that I am lucky enough to lead this life helping dogs and working with amazing people.

Big love to you all.

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.

I had always planned to run a marathon this year but the logistics of it all just sort of got away from me. There were too many dog emergencies, lots of travel and the opening Alba’s Kitchen and Tina’s Hospital have taken it’s toll on my health.

After taking a lot of hard knocks with dogs I just decided to turn the end of the year into a positive. I wanted to come up with something to really save dogs at scale so I decided to run a Marathon with just 30 days training.

What Will We Fund?

In short we will be saving about 150,000 puppies suffering if we pull this off today. I wanted to create something super tangible for people to back so they could see where every penny goes (to the dogs!). Here is how we’ll save those 150,000 if we raise the full amount…

• Our mobile clinic is now funded. It will travel the country with a team of vets and sterilize 5000 dogs in 2026. It will hit the road on the 8th December thanks to the incredible support already

• We are trying to raise $245,000 which is how much it costs for us to fund 7000 sterilizations in the month of December. Each operation costs around $35.

• We estimate (very conservatively) that each sterilization stops about 10-15 puppies being born into a life of suffering on the streets.

• So 12,000 Sterilizations X 10-15 puppies stopped = 120,000 to 180,000 puppies being stopped starting on the 1st December.

The numbers feel impossibly big to understand but I like to think of it in individual dog terms. Each one of those puppies stopped is a Stormzy or an Alba not out there suffering alone. We will stop 150,000 of those if we fully fund this. Our teams are already training on operations and catching dogs as you can see here…

Creating A Global Dog Brand

One thing I am super conscious of on this mission is my own death or an incapacitating illness. That may sound a bit morbid but I think about it all the time. I am in a race against the clock to create this lasting global brand.

I started this mission alone on my moped but my whole focus at the moment is about making it be much bigger than me. My goal is to make Happy Doggo into the biggest dog welfare organization in the world. Making it less about me and more about the organization is super important because…

• The dogs need support from 1000s of people all over the planet

• The Happy Doggo team and medical operations are getting bigger and more expensive to run. We need to have stability and longevity.

• Happy Doggo already provides funding to 13 partner organizations who rely on us

• We aren’t even 1% into this mission yet. We hope to achieve much greater scale for dogs around the world

I dream of a day in the not too distant future where people think of Happy Doggo mission to save street dogs and not me personally. Fundraising is a goal of this race but so too is raising the profile of Happy Doggo as a charity.

Visualizing Alba

I’m writing this just 7 hours before the marathon starts. I know I haven’t done enough training and I will be very lucky to finish it. I’m woefully unprepared. Luckily I have a backup plan…

I think I can do about half the distance on the fitness and the rest on willpower. I’ve already devised a strategy for the second half of the Marathon when I need it and it all comes down to little Alba.

It feels like a lifetime ago but she actually only left us in January. She is the dog that moved me the most this year simply because she had such a short amount of time with us. We’ve already built a kitchen in her honor but I need to draw on her memory to finish this race.

I already have her song on a playlist loop for the end of the Marathon. I sat on her rock yesterday and told her about the race and how hard it would be. I remember her delicate little frame slowly inching up to the rock each morning to see the sunrise. It used to take an age. When I struggle today all I will think about is Alba. If I get it done it will be for her.

Many people have messaged me saying they don’t care if I finish the Marathon. It is true that it genuinely makes no difference to the dogs if I do or don’t complete it. They will still all get the help they need either way.

But it makes a difference to me if I finish it or not. As someone who used to be an alcoholic and unreliable I want to finish it just to cement my progress in life. I’ll do it for Tina, Angelina, Big Mac, Stormzy and all the 150,000 future dogs we’ll stop suffering who don’t have names.

As always we could not do what we do without your support. Along with the kind messages and the thought of all the dogs we’ve met on this journey, that is what will get me through!

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the run by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating here to help us hit out target.