We advocate for humane treatment & placement into loving homes for animals who may be overlooked, abandoned or are at risk. We use community outreach & education initiatives, spay & neuter, fostering, and adoption programs to help neglected animals.
While our primary focus is rabbit rescue, we also care for special needs cats, rats, and other small animals as resources allow. Without a facility, we rely on a network of volunteer fosters to accommodate animals while also relying upon local veterinarians to assist with medical care. We have fosters from Orem to Logan in Northern Utah and focus on helping that specific area.
Our Story
Founders Whitney Schulte and Nicole Hellstrom have been in rescue for over a combined 35 years working with various rescues and animals in many roles. For the five years prior to founding True Hearts for Healing Paws, they discussed starting their own rescue but could not settle on which group of animals needed them the most. Nicole and Whitney continued volunteering with multiple rescues until Nicole decided to adopt a rabbit. After her sweet Angora bunny, Jon Snow, tragically passed away, Nicole started looking for a new bond mate for her female rabbit, Sansa. When looking around, the conditions of local rabbits led Whitney and Nicole to spring into action down the literal rabbit hole into bunny rescue and found True Hearts in 2021.
After finding fosters, spaying and neutering, microchipping, and shuttling more than 25 rabbits back and forth to vet appointments, our founders were all in. Shortly afterwards, they were asked to take care of a large rabbit dump site in the Salt Lake City area before the rabbits from the first site were even all moved out. Whitney and Nicole learned there are very few rescues and resources available for bunnies and knew they had found their calling. In a matter of weeks, a wonderful foster network was created, a relationship with one of the best rabbit vets in the United States and her technician was formed, and bunny savvy volunteers were recruited. With this amazing team, everything possible will be done to improve the situation in Utah for rabbits, including educating the public on how amazing bunnies are!
Why bunnies?
Bunnies are the third most common animal that ends up in shelters, but the rescues and resources available to help them are so much more limited than for cats or dogs. Currently most northern Utah animal shelters are all full, turning away rabbits. Some of the shelters euthanize when they have no more room for rabbits and become overcrowded, others send them to auction where their fate is almost certainly not to be someone’s beloved pet. Rabbits still have a long way to go before they are seen by the general public for the amazing, sensitive, intelligent housemates they really are. They need advocates and voices the most out of all shelter animals we have worked with.
