An abandoned puppy has been adopted by former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher after being saved in a Thailand sanctuary.
Dog rescuer Niall Harbison told Sky News he was shocked to find the legendary singer’s name among the applications to give Buttons a new home nearly 6,000 miles (9,500km) away in the UK.
At first, Mr Harbison – who has hundreds of thousands of followers across social media – thought it was probably a wind-up, or his friends playing a prank.
“The name on the form was Liam Gallagher, but I thought that’s obviously not him,” he said.
“Then the next line was occupation, and it was ‘singer’. I thought my mates were taking the p***. But I checked it out a bit more and his details all stacked up.”
According to Mr Harbison, Gallagher applied the usual way through a Google form, as hundreds of others do.
If any doubts lingered, they were all dispelled when he joined a video call with the Wonderwall singer to check he and his home are fit to host Buttons, as is standard with all applicants.
“I did interviews with him and his lovely wife,” he said.
“They have cats and they just really wanted a dog. They’ve been following me on social media and wanted Buttons.”
He added he doesn’t know if Gallagher will change Buttons’ name.
Sharing a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, to the tune of Oasis’s 1997 hit Stand By Me and with images of the Gallaghers playing with Buttons, Mr Harbison said the brave pooch “hit the jackpot”.
“From being dumped in the Thai jungle to this. You couldn’t make it up Buttons,” he wrote in his post – which was shared by Gallagher as well.
“You did it, brave little girl. She’s in safe hands [with] Liam Gallagher.”
Read more:
Noel Gallagher says latest album helped him with divorce
Zeus, the world’s tallest dog, has died
Buttons was abandoned at just five months old for “not being cute enough”, Mr Harbison said, and spent three months at his sanctuary, Happy Doggo, which is on the island of Koh Samui.
She was initially scared and confused, he added, and took some time to accept the sanctuary while the other dogs became territorial at first.
But she gradually allowed Mr Harbison to come close enough to loosen her collar and take her in as one of their own.
The sanctuary is home to 800 dogs now, having started with 80 two years ago, when Mr Harbison, 43, said he began recovering from problems with alcohol.
“It’s grown organically since I started. I had a breakdown from alcohol and ended up in hospital and I found myself – for want of a better word – helping the dogs,” he said.
Mr Harbison, who is originally from Country Tyrone in Northern Ireland, has written a book, Hope, on what street dogs have taught him about life.