--:-- Rachel Wright: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Saks Off 5th is your secret to fashion's most wanted deals at up to 70% off.
--:-- Rachel Wright: On the hunt for designer steals that'll turn heads and leave a trail of envy? Uncover Gucci, Valentino, Versace, Stuart Weitzman and more. With new arrivals dropping weekly at prices too good to stay confidential.
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--:-- Rachel Wright: Go on, get a little out there, into the big heart of Nevada, where you can go off-road and off the map, on two lakes or on horseback. Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts. Climb a mountain or make your best effort.
--:-- Rachel Wright: See thousands of stars in some of the darkest skies. Stake out haunted hotels. Can you make it to sunrise? There's always something new to see because we've got plenty of space to just be. Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com
--:-- Rachel Wright: This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Rachel Wright and in this edition You're moving faster every day Tom Cruise.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I meet this man who's helped thousands of stray dogs in Thailand. Two childhood sweethearts reunited after more than 85 years. All these years have passed and then suddenly we got in touch again.
--:-- Rachel Wright: And? I looked at the text and I thought to myself, like, history? Like, what are you talking about? And then that's when it clicked in my head for a second. I was like, OK, maybe this is kind of a big deal.
--:-- Rachel Wright: An historic moment in college basketball. Meet the first player with one arm to score during a game.
--:-- Rachel Wright: We begin with the story of a man in Thailand who's become an online celebrity after sharing his stories of the abandoned street dogs he's fed, rehomed and treated.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Niall Harbison lives on the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand. His story begins when he himself was in a bad place, recovering in hospital from alcohol poisoning.
--:-- Niall Harbison: He decided to turn his life around and began to befriend some of the island's many stray dogs. And that became his mission, to fix the global street dog problem.
--:-- Rachel Wright: At his rehabilitation centre on the island, he works tirelessly to improve the dogs' lives, feeding, grooming, treating and sterilising, which doesn't sound that pleasant, but Niall says that will save many more dogs from being born on the street.
--:-- Rachel Wright: While on holiday in Thailand myself last month, I went to visit him and met some of his four-legged friends.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Oh, here he is. Hello, mister. His tail is wagging, which is a good... That's my finger, mister. You can see his back leg is really not doing fantastic. He's in a lot of pain.
--:-- Rachel Wright: We can fix you, mister. You're going to go to the doggy spa, a full health check-up, nice food. What more could you want than that, mister? It's your lucky day.
--:-- Rachel Wright: This is one of Niall Harbison's daily updates on his Instagram page about the trials and tribulations of his dog rescue centre on Kura Samui.
--:-- Rachel Wright: That dog he's just met, with very short legs and a big head, he's named Tom Cruise. When he was first found, he was covered in oil and blood-sucking ticks with a back leg just hanging off his body.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Over the past three years, Niall has fed, treated and rehomed thousands of dogs.
--:-- Niall Harbison: Hi, Rachel. Lovely to meet you. Jump in there. This is life. Might be a little bit tight.
--:-- Rachel Wright: He picked me up from outside a supermarket in a truck emblazoned with his happy Doggo logo and took me up Hope Avenue to what he calls the land.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So down here, we're just walking past out. The dogs will probably start barking. I'm sure most people have been to a dog charity. It can be quite depressing.
--:-- Niall Harbison: It can feel like a prison where the dogs are going crazy and it's noisy and it's... I wanted it to be the opposite of that, if possible.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Now, dogs are still, you know, they'll bark and they'll fight a little bit, but we wanted to make it nice for the dogs and for the people.
--:-- Niall Harbison: Yeah, so it feels happy. Yeah, and it is. It's more like a rehabilitation centre where we can get the dogs back on their feet.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I mean, the thing is, they come in bad, but dogs have unbelievable spirit, as most people know. They might be sick, but within a day or two, we can turn their lives around.
--:-- Niall Harbison: We rely really on, you know, medicines and doctors and vets, but actually a nice, safe place, food, love, just a little bit of attention. That can fix an awful lot.
--:-- Rachel Wright: It's not going to fix, you know, cancer or a broken leg, but it does help an awful lot with the street dogs.
--:-- Rachel Wright: He's looking forward to us. Look at that tail wagging. That's one happy doggo.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Butterscotch is unbelievable. So Niall and I climbed into the pen with Big Mac and Butterscotch.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Hang on a minute, sorry. Big Mac is chewing the wire. Big Mac. No, no, he's just rubbing, it's fine.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I just needed to get all your light. You can rub all your light. OK, let's go.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I was always an alcoholic and suffered from depression, but I moved to Thailand to get away really from the grey, cold English-Irish winters to try and help my health, but that sort of backfired because I ended up in hospital here from nearly drinking myself to death.
--:-- Niall Harbison: But then I had a sort of epiphany. I was like, I have to do something meaningful in my life, and that's when the street dogs came in.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So I just started feeding one or two on my way home on the bike. And then it's grown into this, just more and more dogs.
--:-- Niall Harbison: And we sterilise dogs, we're building a hospital. We sterilise 7,000 dogs every month.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So I'm trying to make a difference for the street dog.
--:-- Rachel Wright: You have built up an enormous following on social media, on Instagram and Twitter.
--:-- Niall Harbison: How does that make you feel that you've done that?
--:-- Niall Harbison: Well, actually, people like a bit of good news, you know. And that's hopefully why they're starting their day with that, because there's quite a bombardment of bad news.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So, yeah, it's a little bit of hope in their day.
--:-- Niall Harbison: What is your ultimate plan?
--:-- Niall Harbison: The ultimate plan is ridiculous, and I'll probably fail. There's 500 million street dogs in the world, and in my lifetime, I want to half that.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So that's 250 million street dogs. So it's bonkers to try and do that.
--:-- Niall Harbison: But we're going to try and do it through sterilisation, education and legislation. So we need to get government support.
--:-- Rachel Wright: We begin with the story of a man in Thailand who's become an online celebrity after sharing his stories of the abandoned street dogs he's fed, rehomed and treated.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Niall Harbison lives on the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand. His story begins when he himself was in a bad place, recovering in hospital from alcohol poisoning.
--:-- Rachel Wright: He decided to turn his life around and began to befriend some of the island's many stray dogs. And that became his mission, to fix the global street dog problem.
--:-- Rachel Wright: At his rehabilitation centre on the island, he works tirelessly to improve the dogs' lives, feeding, grooming, treating and sterilising, which doesn't sound that pleasant, but Niall says that will save many more dogs from being born on the street.
--:-- Rachel Wright: While on holiday in Thailand myself last month, I went to visit him and met some of his four-legged friends.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Oh, here he is. Hello, mister. His tail is wagging, which is a good... That's my finger, mister. You can see his back leg is really not doing fantastic. He's in a lot of pain.
--:-- Rachel Wright: We can fix you, mister. You're going to go to the doggy spa, a full health check-up, nice food. What more could you want than that, mister? It's your lucky day.
--:-- Rachel Wright: This is one of Niall Harbison's daily updates on his Instagram page about the trials and tribulations of his dog rescue centre on Kura Samui.
--:-- Rachel Wright: That dog he's just met, with very short legs and a big head, he's named Tom Cruise. When he was first found, he was covered in oil and blood-sucking ticks with a back leg just hanging off his body.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Over the past three years, Niall has fed, treated and rehomed thousands of dogs.
--:-- Rachel Wright: He picked me up from outside a supermarket in a truck emblazoned with his happy Doggo logo and took me up Hope Avenue to what he calls the land.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So down here, we're just walking past out. The dogs will probably start barking. I'm sure most people have been to a dog charity. It can be quite depressing.
--:-- Niall Harbison: It can feel like a prison where the dogs are going crazy and it's noisy and it's... I wanted it to be the opposite of that, if possible.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Now, dogs are still, you know, they'll bark and they'll fight a little bit, but we wanted to make it nice for the dogs and for the people.
--:-- Niall Harbison: Yeah, so it feels happy. Yeah, and it is. It's more like a rehabilitation centre where we can get the dogs back on their feet.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I mean, the thing is, they come in bad, but dogs have unbelievable spirit, as most people know. They might be sick, but within a day or two, we can turn their lives around.
--:-- Niall Harbison: We rely really on, you know, medicines and doctors and vets, but actually a nice, safe place, food, love, just a little bit of attention. That can fix an awful lot.
--:-- Rachel Wright: It's not going to fix, you know, cancer or a broken leg, but it does help an awful lot with the street dogs.
--:-- Rachel Wright: He's looking forward to us. Look at that tail wagging. That's one happy doggo.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Butterscotch is unbelievable. So Niall and I climbed into the pen with Big Mac and Butterscotch.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Hang on a minute, sorry. Big Mac is chewing the wire. Big Mac. No, no, he's just rubbing, it's fine.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I just needed to get all your light. You can rub all your light. OK, let's go.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I was always an alcoholic and suffered from depression, but I moved to Thailand to get away really from the grey, cold English-Irish winters to try and help my health, but that sort of backfired because I ended up in hospital here from nearly drinking myself to death.
--:-- Niall Harbison: But then I had a sort of epiphany. I was like, I have to do something meaningful in my life, and that's when the street dogs came in.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So I just started feeding one or two on my way home on the bike. And then it's grown into this, just more and more dogs.
--:-- Niall Harbison: And we sterilise dogs, we're building a hospital. We sterilise 7,000 dogs every month.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So I'm trying to make a difference for the street dog.
--:-- Rachel Wright: You have built up an enormous following on social media, on Instagram and Twitter.
--:-- Niall Harbison: How does that make you feel that you've done that?
--:-- Niall Harbison: Well, actually, people like a bit of good news, you know. And that's hopefully why they're starting their day with that, because there's quite a bombardment of bad news.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So, yeah, it's a little bit of hope in their day.
--:-- Niall Harbison: What is your ultimate plan?
--:-- Niall Harbison: The ultimate plan is ridiculous, and I'll probably fail. There's 500 million street dogs in the world, and in my lifetime, I want to half that.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So that's 250 million street dogs. So it's bonkers to try and do that.
--:-- Niall Harbison: But we're going to try and do it through sterilisation, education and legislation. So we need to get government support.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Now, here's a question. What noise does a shark make?
--:-- Rachel Wright: Well, that recorded for what's known to be the very first time is the sound of a shark. It was captured by scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
--:-- Rachel Wright: The clicking is made by the shark's teeth. Dr Lauren Smith is a marine biologist and a shark scientist and told us more.
--:-- Dr Lauren Smith: Historically, we've always thought that no sharks don't make sounds and that's it. They don't actually have sort of mechanisms by which they would normally be able to make sounds.
--:-- Rachel Wright: With bony fish teleosts, what they tend to do is they have morphological adaptations, whereby they use their swim bladders to actually create a vibratory sound for various different reasons.
--:-- Dr Lauren Smith: But sharks don't have those kind of physiological characteristics, and they don't have swim bladders, and they don't have any kind of morphological differences around their gill area or anything like that that could make them be able to create a sound either.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So the fact that they're actually been recorded to make sounds is really interesting.
--:-- Dr Lauren Smith: It sounds like they're literally making these sounds by sort of snapping their jaws together, but you know, absolutely just fascinating.
--:-- Rachel Wright: And of course the question will be, you know, are we then going to be able to record the sounds being created by other shark species?
--:-- Dr Lauren Smith: To be honest, this discovery just highlights the fact that how little we do know and that there's plenty of surprises still out there in sharks and in the oceans.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Coming up, meet the women organising discos to help overcome grief.
--:-- Rachel Wright: There a lot of guilt around grief and shame and lots and lots of difficult emotions. So we take that and we leave that on the dance floor.
--:-- Rachel Wright: We tell people to leave it on the dance floor. And they do.
--:-- Rachel Wright: And it's just such a wonderful... That tends to really hit people the most, that permission for joy.
--:-- Rachel Wright: And, yeah, somebody said to me the other day, It's an event that I went to that I didn't know I needed because it fills, it helps us deal with all the heaviness.
--:-- Rachel Wright: And it's so difficult to maybe put into words, as Leah said, but having that opportunity to be in a place that's joyful as well, to be in a place where there's music.
--:-- Rachel Wright: You can speak to people that totally get it, that know how you feel, especially because when you are grieving, then sometimes the answer to how are you today isn't pretty, but we haven't got the capacity sometimes to deal with that.
--:-- Rachel Wright: So you button up and you say, yeah, fine. But when you come to the grief disco, you're invited to just say, yeah, this is how I feel.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Georgina Jones and Leah Sean Davis.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Before we go, a couple of weeks ago, we covered the story of the kindness of strangers.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Well, we've received some emails from the listeners. Here's one from Rebecca from Colorado in the US that says, I dropped my cell phone on the sidewalk one time.
--:-- Rachel Wright: This was before smartphones existed. A stranger found it, dialed ICE in my context in case of emergency, and he offered to mail me my phone.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I offered to pay him back for the postage, but he said no. When I received the package, he had his return address on it, so I mailed him a check anyway.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Thanks, Rebecca.
--:-- Rachel Wright: And that's all from The Happy Pod for now.
--:-- Rachel Wright: We'd love to hear from you. As ever, the address is globalpodcasts at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Rachel Wright: And you can now watch some of our interviews on YouTube. Just search for The Happy Pod.
--:-- Rachel Wright: This edition was produced by Harry Bly and Rachel Bulkeley.
--:-- Rachel Wright: It was mixed by Adrian Bhargava.
--:-- Rachel Wright: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I'm Rachel Wright. Until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Rachel Wright: America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Rachel Wright: I'm Tristan Redman in London.
--:-- Rachel Wright: And this is The Global Story.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet.
--:-- Rachel Wright: Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
