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Our Featured Pet: Precious

        Precious is an adorable tiny tabby girl, approximately four months old. She was rescued with her brother, Peter. Precious is shy but sweet and enjoys being held and snuggled. She would do best in a quiet home with a kitty friend to keep her company. Her adoption fee is $90. She has been spayed, had her shots, dewormings, flea prevention and is negative for AIDS and leukemia. Please email healingheartsar@hotmail.com, call or text (615) 290-2454 if you can offer this adorable snuggly baby girl a forever home.

Who We Are

       Healing Hearts Animal Rescue is a small, local animal rescue organization located in Madison, Tennessee. Our mission is to help cats and dogs with special needs to find homes where they can be loved for who they are and the special joy they bring to our lives. With dogs, we work mainly with dogs and puppies who are deaf and/or blind. With cats we help cats and kittens with a variety of special needs. Healing Hearts has a very liberal policy of non-discrimination and considers each potential adoptive family on an individual basis.  

News

       Healing Hearts has had a challenging year, but since Joy started her new job at Asurion in mid-September, we have been able to pay all of our bills and are finally getting some adoptions!     In the mean time, we welcome donations of cat food, dog food, and cat litter. What would be most helpful to us right now is gift cards to Tractor Supply, PetSmart or Petco.    These can be mailed to us at 235 Maple St, Madison, TN 37115.  If you prefer to make a monetary donation, make your check to Joy Austin (rescue director) and mail it to the above address.    Paypal donations may be sent to healingheartsar@hotmail.com. If you can't afford to make a donation, we are collecting aluminum soda cans as well as cat food cans (clean and rinsed) to recycle for cat and dog food money. If you have cans to donate, please leave them in a bag or box on our front porch at 235 Maple Street, Madison, TN.

Adoption Days at Tractor Supply

Our second Adoption Day at the Tractor Supply in Hendersonville went very well on November 12th. We received $22 in donations and our adoptable animals were able to get some excellent socialization.

Adoption Update

      All of the Miracle Babies have been adopted except for Emily. Noel will be the special baby of a couple who lost their baby recently. Gabriel and Andrew are being adopted together to be the kitty children to a couple in Hendersonville.

The ever-loving and obedient Samantha has finally found her forever home in South Carolina with a new Dad who works from home and a little girl to shower her kisses upon. Yay Sammy! And thank you to the friends who helped with her transport!!

Our snuggly and adorable Molly was adopted at last to a loving home where she has a new mommy with lots of dog experience and she will be the new playmate and best friend to a 6 year old Labrador Retriever. Yay for Molly!

The lovely and snuggly Whisper has finally found her forever home with a gentle, kind lady who is treating her like a little princess. Whisper is finally getting all of the love and attention that she deserves! Congratulations Whisper!

Our adorable and snuggly little Mary found the perfect home where she is now the first dog and best friend for a little boy. She also has a little poodle mix to play with, two older dogs who look just like her to hang out with, and some pet parents who already love her very much. Mary has a huge yard and an enormous house to roam and all the petting she could ever ask for. When I left her with her forever family, I had never seen her tail wag so much!

Foster Update

    

We have one beautiful, friendly adult cat who is hoping to find her forever home soon: Olivia. Basil and Aranelle are extremely loving and affectionate with Joy, but still learning that other people are safe too. We also have six formerly feral foster cats who are making amazing progress right now toward trusting people, feeling calmer and more relaxed around people, and we hope will even be friendly sometime soon.

      All of our cats and kittens have been tested for AIDS and leukemia, spayed or neutered, dewormed, had their shots, had flea medicine and are currently healthy. They come with a litter pan, vet records, as well as food and litter coupons. Their adoption fee is $90 each or $150 for two. We do offer a lifetime return policy where our cats and kittens can be returned at any time for any reason. If something does not work out within the first two weeks of bringing home your new cat or kitten, you can have your adoption fee refunded in full.

Foster Openings

     

Right now we do not have the financial resources to take in dogs or cats of any kind. All we can offer is courtesy posting on our PetFinder site. A courtesy posting looks like the postings for the animals already within our program and receives the same coverage throughout the PetFinder site. Email Joy at healingheartsAR@hotmail.com for more information.

Special Needs Cats

       Basil has severe food allergies and has to be kept on a grain-free dry cat food.

       Alexandra, Tabitha and Elena are semi-feral and can only be adopted to a home with an owner who is experienced in working with feral and/or semi-feral cats.

       Basil and Aranelle are very shy and timid around new people but as loving and affectionate as cats can be once you have earned their trust.

        Halle and Sanctura are very shy and prefer the company of their kitty friends to people. They would prefer to be adopted with a kitty friend.

Special Needs Dogs

       We will have to wait until we can afford to finish fixing up our house before we will be able to foster any more special needs dogs.

DONATIONS NEEDED

Any grain-free dry cat or dog food, since we have many cats with allergies and sensitive stomachs, such as any of the following:

Blue Buffalo (found at PetSmart, Petco and Tractor Supply) - any variety.

Diamond Cat or Dog food (found at Tractor Supply and local Co-Op or at www.diamondpet.com )

Revolution for dogs (20-40 lbs)

Revolution for dogs (40-85 lbs)

a medium or large fluffy dog bed

a medium-sized wire dog crate

a soft, fluffy cat bed of any kind

cat toys of any kind

cat treats of any kind

fuzzy mice toys

dog chew toys

dog chew bones or treats

doggie shampoo

dog food (any brand)

PetSmart gift cards

PetCo gift cards

Tractor Supply gift cards (so we can buy food and litter)

blankets (any size)

towels (any size)

Bleach wipes or wet wipes

bleach

thin sisal rope (for making repairs to our cat towers)

       Healing Hearts is struggling financially right now so our greatest need is financial donations (check or cash made out to Joy Austin) or PetSmart gift cards, mailed to 235 Maple Street Madison, TN 37115. If you would like to make a donation toward our veterinary bills, you can call VetMed Animal Health in Mt. Juliet at (615) 553-4156 and tell them that you want to make a donation by credit card over the phone toward Healing Hearts/Joy Austin's account.

       A gift of any size is more than appreciated! But please be aware that your donations are NOT tax-deductible because we are not yet a 501-c-3 non-profit organization. We are planning to submit our 501-c-3 application when we can afford the $850 application fee. If you would like to make a donation toward our 501-c-3 application fee, please indicate this on your check. You can also donate through PayPal to help our foster animals:

       Can't afford to donate money or items? Then just clip the "weight circles" from your bags of Purina brand cat or dog food and mail them in to us so we can earn points toward a donation for veterinary care. Right now our goal is 35,000 Purina points which will qualify us for a $350 donation sent directly to our vet to help with ongoing veterinary costs of our foster animals. Currently we have 3,501 points, so please send us your weight circles and we will update our total until we reach our goal!

We are also collecting aluminum cans - both cat food cans and beverage cans (Coke, beer, Sprite, etc.). When we have enough cans, we take them downtown and recycle them for cash. This money is used to buy cat and dog food for our animals. If you would like to donate cans to our pet food fund, then just drop off your cans on our front porch at 235 Maple Street in Madison, TN.

Volunteers Needed

We need help with our webpage. If you are a whiz at HMTL or have other website-building skills such as posting pictures, please drop us an email and let us know how you would like to help us improve the appearance of our webpage. Website assistance is eligible for reduction in adoption fees for adoptable animals.

We also need quiet, gentle, patient people willing to regularly volunteer an hour or two a week to help our foster cats work on their socialization skills so they can be ready for adoption. This just involves sitting quietly, petting and enjoying the attention of the friendly cats, as well as playing with the more active cats with a dangly toy.

Help is needed to do yardwork in our large, fenced-in backyard. Joy takes care of the poop patrol, but needs help with mowing, clearing brush and cleaning up around the pond. If you have a high school or middle school student who needs community service hours, we are glad to use their help with yardwork. We have an old-fashioned reel mower and simple clippers that are easy to use.

   

Adopting a Friend

*Healing Hearts Animal Rescue does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, religion, national origin, disability or lifestyle preference. We regularly adopt cats and kittens to families with children or adults who have a variety of physical or mental disabilities. We also do out-of-state adoptions so long as you are willing to come and pick up your new pet. However, Healing Hearts does reserve the right to accept or deny any application on the basis of the individual needs of the foster animal. If your application or request to adopt a particular animal is denied, then you will be told what the specific reason was, and offered additional resources to assist you in locating the right animal for your family. Cats and kittens may be adopted out of state, so long as we can coordinate transportation. *   Cats: You must fill out our cat adoption application and sign our cat adoption contract in order to adopt from our organization. We only adopt our cats and kittens to indoor homes. Cat and kitten adoption fee is $90 which includes Feline leukemia and AIDS testing, spay or neuter surgery, shots, deworming, flea medicine and any other necessary medical care. For older cats, special needs cats, or semi-feral cats and kittens, adoption fees may be reduced. If you choose to adopt two cats or kittens, then the adoption fee is $150 for two.   Dogs: You must fill out our dog adoption application and sign our dog adoption contract in order to adopt from our organization. Since our dogs and puppies have special needs, they may only be adopted to indoor homes. A fenced-in yard is preferred but not always required. A home visit is included as part of our adoption process, to ensure that our foster dogs will be living in an environment that will be safe for them, in consideration of their special needs. Dog and puppy adoption fees vary with the dog's individual medical and training needs, which includes heartworm testing, spay or neuter surgery, shots, deworming, monthly flea and heartworm prevention, as well as any other necessary medical care.   Please email Joy at healingheartsAR@hotmail.com for more information on our adoption process.  

Come Visit Us!

Please email Joy at healingheartsAR@hotmail.com for directions to our shelter. Foster animals are available for visitors by appointment only. Appointments can be scheduled ONLY on Fridays or Saturdays. All available foster animals are listed online. We have no other dogs or cats available at this time.

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Healing Hearts Animal Rescue
235 Maple Street

Madison, TN 37115
Phone: (615) 290-2454

Phone calls can only be returned between 9 and 10 am or between 8 and 9 pm Sunday through Thursday. Email is a faster way to get a response.

Email:

Please also check out our listings at Adopt-a-Pet.com:

Click here for Adopt-a-pet.com

Joy is the Examiner for Special Needs Pets in Nashville at Examiner.com. Every time one of her articles is read, the Examiner website donates a few pennies to Healing Hearts. Please subscribe to our Examiner page and read Joy's articles as another way to support our rescue.

Click here for Joy's Examiner page.

We also have our own website of information about FIP and LTCI:

Click here for FIP & LTCI Information.