After Wilkinsburg residents Michele and Henk Bossers lost their 17-year-old dog Cody nearly two years ago, the couple figured their dog days were over. Henk turned 80 last Tuesday, and Michele will do so this summer.
Michele took to the internet in search of an organization that could make use of the supplies Cody left behind: bedding, food, toys and medication.“There’s a local Wilkinsburg online newsletter — The Wilkinsburg Sun — and I just happened to be reading that one day, and there was this column about Harmony Dog Rescue, and at the time, they were here in Wilkinsburg,” she says.
The nonprofit emergency dog boarding service had just been founded in December 2023 by Tim and Molly Lydon. The Lydons were eager for any help they could get their hands on. Michele visited their Wilkinsburg home to drop off supplies, and by the time she left, she had signed on to be a volunteer dog walker.
Two years later, the Bossers have fostered five dogs and consider the Lydons — and Harmony Dog Rescue — part of their family. The rescue as a whole has supported 112 dogs over the past two years.
“We got to be friends … because all this is happening in their home in Wilkinsburg,” Bossers says. “It’s not like you’re going to an office, you’re just going to their home, and over time, we established a really supportive relationship. They were just here last week for dinner.”
If you haven’t heard of emergency boarding before, you’re probably not alone. Lydon claims Harmony Dog Rescue is the only organization solely dedicated to emergency boarding in the state.
In Allegheny County, three other groups provide emergency boarding in addition to other services: Paws Across Pittsburgh, Animal Friends and Humane Animal Rescue. Most of these organizations don’t advertise that they offer emergency boarding, though, because of how often owners ghost them and abandon their pets — what Lydon calls “dog dumping.”
Lydon’s passion for the project arose from time he spent as an employee of a local animal shelter. One day while he was working the pet helpline, he got a call from a woman who was sleeping in her truck with her two dogs after leaving a violent home.
“That phone call — I’ll never forget that woman’s voice, the terror in her voice, and it still haunts me,” Lydon says.
It was late Friday afternoon, and he was prepared to leave his post to go meet her, but managers told him he couldn’t.
“The only thing I could say to this woman who was obviously in crisis was, ‘Call us back Monday,’” he says. “We never heard from her again.”
Lydon and his wife, Molly, wanted to create a scrappy, responsive organization that could cover similar service gaps.
Queenie plays with a toy during an interview with Michele Bossers on Saturday, Nov. 15. Photo by Roman Hladio.
On Dec. 7, 2023, they accepted their first two fosters into a kennel they had installed in the basement of their Wilkinsburg home.
“We were really afraid to pull the trigger and take in those first two dogs, because there was no turning back, but once we started … our lives were never the same.”
Harmony Dog Rescue offers 40 days of emergency foster care and often provides extensions, which can stretch to 60 or even 90 days. The dogs stay with volunteer fosters in their homes.
Michelle Byrne was recently reunited with her dog, Sonic, after an emergency surgery sent her to the hospital in October. Sonic spent about a month in foster care.
“He missed me and I’ve missed him, and all he wants to do is cuddle with me,” Byrne says.
Byrne says that it was Sonic’s second stay with Harmony Dog Rescue — they previously took care of Sonic while Byrne left a domestic violence situation about a year ago.
Before connecting with Harmony Dog Rescue over Facebook, Byrne was going to surrender Sonic, which she says would have been devastating. He doubles as her emotional support animal.
The Lydons not only ensured that she could reconnect with Sonic after she found stable housing, but continued to check in and make sure the pair could stay together.
“I live in housing, so I have to have [proof of vaccination] to be able to be in housing,” Byrne says. “Tim helped me with that and made sure I could get him back — he didn’t make it hard for me to get him back. A lot of places, after a while, they’ll ask you to surrender your animal.
“He didn’t do that. He knows that I’m attached to Sonic and Sonic’s attached to me.”
Initially, the Lydons’ mission was to serve domestic violence survivors by taking care of their pets while they found safe new homes. At the same time, they were getting calls from people who were unhoused, going to rehab or in the midst of a medical emergency, so they expanded their mission.
Pets can feel the pain of rising prices of food and housing as much as humans: Allegheny County reports rising cases of people experiencing homelessness in 2024, and Humane Animal Rescue reports an increase in cases of dog abandonment at its shelters.
Harmony Dog Rescue works with community support groups like the nonprofit Bridge to the Mountains, Pittsburgh Mercy’s Operation Safety Net and the City of Pittsburgh’s Office of Community Health and Safety.
“The dog stuff’s easy, but the human side has been very challenging because my wife and I are not social workers,” Lydon says. “It’s really hard to love someone who’s overdosed on fentanyl for the third time, and it’s 11 o’clock at night and I have to drive Downtown to get their dog. That has tested my compassion for people. But it’s what we signed up for.
“Whenever they eventually get clean … and they get in a house with their pet, it makes it all worth it for us.”
Michele Bossers and her dog, Queenie, pose in her Wilkinsburg home. Photo by Roman Hladio.
Harmony Dog Rescue keeps the circumstances of a dog’s owner confidential, but they tell foster parents any relevant information regarding potential triggers for the dog and a rough estimate of how long to expect they’ll have the dog, Bossers says.
Harmony Dog Rescue financially covers everything a foster dog might need: medicine, vet visits, bedding, food and more.
In October 2024, the Lydons moved to a 3-acre property in Wexford. It’s not much closer to Downtown Pittsburgh, but the new location has proven to be a boon for the organization.
“We have probably half a dozen people who, weekly, come over and just walk dogs for us and socialize dogs,” Lydon says.
The rescue works with a collective of 30 to 40 volunteer foster homes. Fosters end in reunification more than half the time, says Lydon. Currently, the rescue has seven dogs in foster homes set to return to their owners and three more up for adoption.
While Michele Bossers is no longer close enough to be a consistent dog walker, she remained a foster parent in the rescue’s network until recently. In July, she and Henk adopted Queenie, a pit bull they had been fostering, after her owner surrendered her.
“Her first mom was really good to her, but her life situation changed,” Bossers says. “We didn’t plan on adopting a dog. She’s an older dog, but … she’s just the right dog for people our age — maybe a little big, but just the right dog.”
If you’re experiencing homelessness, mental health challenges, domestic violence or medical emergencies or want to apply to be a foster, visit Harmony Dog Rescue’s website, call 412-565-9789 or email info@harmonydogrescue.org.
Emergency housing resources for humans are accessible via Allegheny Connect’s website and via the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh.