Bosch is back for it’s fourth season.
The Amazon police procedural starts up again on April 13 with Titus Welliver returning to his titular role.
On screen, Welliver is surrounded by corruption, vengeance and crime, but at home he is just surrounded by animals.
“I say I basically live in an animal shelter,” Welliver joked to PEOPLE.
The actor is currently sharing his home with four dogs, four cats and six horses, all of whom are rescues aside from one golden retriever.
Welliver’s love for animals started young.
“I was that kid that, if I found a rat in the park with a broken leg, I would find a way to get this feral creature into a cardboard box and nurse it back to health,” he explained.
This devotion to needy creatures extended to his pets when he met his wife Jose Stemkens, who was a proud rescue parent to a “Dr. Seuss creature” of a dog that formed a bond with Welliver’s golden retriever Mowgli.
When Mowgli’s buddy passed away, everyone was heartbroken, but especially the golden retriever. About two days later, the couple started searching for a friend for the canine, finding a “hysterically funny” rescue West Highland white terrier/Schnauzer mix from Alison Eastwood’s Eastwood Ranch Foundation.
From there, Welliver and his family quickly accumulated animals to the point where now the actor has to stay in the car when his wife and daughter stop by their veterinarian, which contains a small rescue inside, for fear he will walk out with every animal if he goes in with them.
Welliver’s retirement dream is to be able to do just that: to give every rescue animal he falls in love with a forever home.
“I would have a farm house in Connecticut and I would build a barn and make it a place for animals to relax, turn it to a really cool animal condominium,” he said of the grand plan.
For now, Welliver is looking forward to coming home to his own menagerie of pets and seeing where Bosch takes him next. He also hopes that speaking out about all of the animals his family has adopted and helped encourages other to reach out to a creature in need, so they can understand and feel the kind of love that only comes from a rescue pet.
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“There is an inherent trait to rescue animals, they have enormous gratitude and they are so affectionate —that is their way of saying ‘Thank you for saving my life.’ It’s inexplicable and very real,” the pet parent of 14 shared.