South Hills Pet Rescue bursting at the seams, calling for fosters, funds

UNION TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Every kennel is filled at South Hills Pet Rescue in Union Township in Washington County.

Dogs that need a forever-loving home.

“We are really overwhelmed. We have any given time about 60 dogs between the kennel and foster homes. So there’s dogs of all sizes, all shapes hypoallergenic, non-hypoallergenic,” board member of South Hills Pet Rescue, Randi Fowler, said.

Fowler is a retired Pittsburgh police officer who has a passion for rescuing animals.

“We need fosters. So this one here this Great Dane in here I just took in as a foster yesterday. She’s looking for a home, she’s 2, she was a breeder, chained outside,” Fowler said. “We’re kind of restarting all over again. We need people to help us.”

Fowler said the COVID-19 pandemic turned the rescue upside down.

“We’re scraping by. When we don’t have enough funds we can’t take an extra dogs and again we’re gonna have to turn away rescues that we’d love to be able to help,” volunteer Ed Ellis said.

Ellis is also the director of capital improvements at the rescue, which survives on fundraising.

Channel 11 was told South Hills Pet Rescue is the region’s only nonprofit kennel that isn’t state-subsidized.

Right now, it’s in desperate need of volunteers to walk the dogs and foster the dogs.

But it also needs help maintaining the building and property.

“We need to do some painting, we need to do some rerouting of downspouts, we need to do some tree trimming. Those are quick capital improvement projects we have to do this fall,” Ellis said.

“Let’s face it. Kind of Pittsburgh is a family kind of town and we need the family to help us help them,” Fowler said.

If you’d like to volunteer or make a monetary donation, click here.

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