Celebrate One BILLION views of Awareness

Thank you for being a part of this amazing journey to help us raise awareness all over the world!!!

When I started this channel, Hope For Paws didn't even exist... I just wanted to share with my family a few videos of the animals I was fostering and I never imagined it will turn to be the largest nonprofit channel on YouTube!  😊

It is so cool to me that every day, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world come to our channel, they write comments, talk to other people about their love for animals, and I am so happy we are here to facilitate that.

I really hope I can count on you for a small donation as the year is coming to an end.  Winter is coming and I would like to get as many animals off the streets as possible... a donation of any size would be amazing and you can do it right here on the blog (see below).

Reading through so many comments, sometimes I am asked "How come you help animals?  Why don't you help people?".  Instead of answering that, I would like to share an email I received, and I'll let you come to your own conclusion:

“Eldad, a couple of years ago I was in Afghanistan struggling.
I found one of your videos online and started to binge-watch them.
I decided to contact you because I needed some hope in my life.
A few days later I had a plan to kill myself in the bathroom but decided to look at my email first and I got a response. It told me of the time you spent in the Army and the struggles that all warriors deal with.
Bottom line is that it happened at just the right time. Because of you and your organization, my children still have a daddy and my wife still has a husband.
You have saved more than just dogs and I thank you with all my heart.”

Every picture is linked to a video... just click on each one, and a video will start playing.
 

Lucy met Ace just hours after I pulled her from the shelter.  It's so cool to see how amazing they are together, and how beautiful it is to see her licking his wounds.

The rescue video of ACE is one of the first ones I ever filmed... It was a pretty scary situation, I was alone, I had no experience, and Ace was very lucky I was called that night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YfSLQR8AC8

Pit Bulls are misunderstood, and it makes me so happy to read every time when someone says that our videos changed the way they look at Pit Bulls and that they are not scared of them anymore.  Some of the Pit Bulls on our channel have been badly abused, and I am glad we are able to show how amazing they are.  Buddha is like a big baby, and the end with him and the cat is just so cute!

We get many calls for animals in weird locations... the rescue of these kittens is our most popular cat rescue video EVER!
 

I rescued Chase back in 2010 from the South Central Shelter.  When one of the officers reached out to me and told me she had been abused, I told her I will come to get her.
It was so amazing to show the people at the shelter how quickly I was able to turn her around behaviorally.  Chase was never adopted... SHE IS MY DOG - I couldn't let this one go  😊
She is now an older lady but still behaves like a playful puppy.

Clarabelle was abandoned in an industrial area and was so scared of people.  She hid under a shipping container, and I had to crawl under and try to convince her to come with me.  I have never seen such behavior from a dog... she covered her eyes as a frightened child would.  These animals have such emotional intelligence and I am so happy I was able to show it to almost 10 million people!

 

Many people were really upset with me for posting this video.  People come to our channel and expect a happy ending, but our reality is different and I don't want to sugar coat it... we deal with death all the time.  With your support, we are able to really provide these animals with the best medical care, but sometimes that's not enough.  I have watched this video dozens of times, and every time I cry.

Fiiiiiiona! (that's how I call her to this day).  Fiona is the dog that changed EVERYTHING for Hope For Paws!  I believe her video was the first dog rescue viral video in the world!
When Fiona's video went viral, we were invited to be on Anderson Cooper's show, her story was in the Daily Mail, The Huffington Post, The New York Times - it was everywhere.
Fiona's story is the best story of HOPE and it really enabled us to grow as an organization.  When her video went viral, we rushed to build a great website for Hope For Paws, we were able to raise funds and accomplish so many more rescues.

I don't even know why I own white pants (considering I am always on call and can find myself in the sewer at any given moment), but of course, I was wearing white pants when I got the call about Frankie.  This little guy didn't give up without a fight.  He made me crawl under 10 lanes of traffic in filthy, muddy water, and when he got to a dead end, he tried to bite me with his little teeth  😊 

 

Julia's transformation was just incredible!  At first, I didn't even know if she was a dog, a coyote or a wolf!  I really don't want to say too much - this video is a MUST SEE! 
 

Doing the work we do, we are trying to raise awareness about animal cruelty issues.  Coyote traps are barbaric tools that cause so much pain, suffering, and death!  These devices are still legal in many states, and when we got the call on the Hope For Paws line about Hermione, we knew we needed to help.  We were told that local rescuers in South Carolina, the police and animal control all failed to save her in the five days they were trying, and we were able to accomplish the challenging mission with the amazing help from the community out in South Carolina.

When I got the call about Arya, my whole team was out on other rescue missions, so I had to go alone.  Working alone and trying to film these missions is not the easiest task, but it is so important!  It is important for me to show the world the suffering that exists there, it's important to show how kindness can turn these animals around, and it's really important that you'll see how your donations are helping us pay for all these surgeries.

Sometimes we need to do some really dangerous stuff to save lives.  Looking back, this could have ended tragically for Napoleon and for us, but we are really doing our best to accomplish our missions as quickly and as safely as possible.  We don't always have time to wear vests... there is usually no time and every second can be the difference between life and death for these animals.  It was so cool that one of the people who stopped and allowed us to cross the freeway recognized us and knew exactly what we were there for!  I really appreciate all the drivers for stopping and allowing us to accomplish this rescue successfully!

 

The next two rescues required extreme measures!  When dogs are not in urban environments and they can just run and run and run, we have to call in special forces!

My sweet Daisy required two trips to the Florida Everglades, and we finally got her!  Some of these rescues connect me with people who will be lifelong friends and I feel so lucky to connect with people all over the country... people I probably would have never met in my life.  Daisy passed away a few weeks ago after living a long happy life with her adopting mom Kelly Lecain.

When I show people this picture of Miley, they think it was taken in a 3rd world country.  The sad truth is that this picture was taken about 20 miles south of Hollywood, California.  Many people must have passed by her, but no one did anything until a really nice guy spotted her.  Daniel knew our rescue videos and he called me right away for help.  I rushed to the rescue location, and the rest is in this video that was seen by more than 25 million people!  It is so cool to see in the video how Miley helps Frankie recover.  I hope you will watch until the end.

 

Jessie must be the luckiest kitten in the world - he survived when all the odds were against him!  Little Jessie fell down a 43 foot deep well and cried for help for 4 days.  A few rescue attempts in South Carolina failed, and as the property owner, Debra, was about to give up, she scrolled through her Facebook page, came across a Hope For Paws rescue video, called me (it was 3 A.M), I happened to be awake, and I knew this was super serious.  Loreta and I took the red-eye flight to North Carolina, drove down to South Carolina, and it was just incredible that we were able to save his life!

Doing the work we do, we come across cruelty to levels that I will never understand.  Jordan was badly abused, his leg was cut off with a knife and he was thrown down to the L.A River.  His recovery process was remarkable and it's another one of these MUST SEE rescue videos (just click on his image).  If you need to find strength, see how he found it and you'll be inspired!

Many people think we are a dog rescue organization or a cat rescue organization, but the truth is that we rescue all kinds of animals - dogs, cats, bunnies, opossums, donkeys, squirrels, ducks, song birds, birds of pray, raccoons, lizards and more.  This rescue will show how far people will let us go and what they will allow us to do in order to save lives!

I don't know if most people understand how dangerous some of these rescues are.  If the cave that I dug would have collapsed on me that day, I would have died there.  Every time a train passed by and the ground was shaking, I could feel the danger and I knew the consequences.  It took us a whole day to accomplish the mission - please don't try this at home! (or at your local cave).
 

DJ Marshmello joined us last year for a fundraising campaign and it was amazing!  We are so grateful to YouTube for helping us with this project, and we are so grateful for each and every one of you for donating and helping us save so many lives!

I could have told so many more stories, but I don't want this blog post to be longer than it already is.

Thank you for sharing our rescue videos - it really helps us with reaching more people from all over the world, and the more people know about us, the more help we're able to provide.

Please join our fundraising campaign and help us save more lives - we always want to break our own records!

https://www.HopeForPaws.org

Eldad