Stop China's fur trade in dogs and cats

This petition is dedicated to stop more than 2,000,000 cats, dogs and other animals being brutally and callously skinned alive in China every year.

The animals are caged in cramped conditions, often fed on starvation rations or on the skinned carcasses of other cats and dogs.

Prior to skinning, they are dragged from their cages. The skinners hit them with a heavy metal rod or wooden club to break their necks or backs leaving them incapacitated and unable to defend themselves. Smaller animals are sometimes picked up by a hind leg and swung against the cage or the ground to achieve the same result. In most cases the animals are alive and conscious during the whole skinning process, squealing and yelping in agony in full view of the other terrified animals waiting in their cages for their turn.

In some cases the dogs may be led to a place of execution, where they are chained together or in a row. Each dog watches the horror metered out to the others, listening to their agonised squeals and frantically struggling to get away. When finally a man or woman walks towards it, rod or club in hand, the struggling terrified animal leaves no doubt that it knows exactly what is about to happen.

When incapacitated, the animal is usually strung up by a back leg or held down by a skinner wearing heavy boots for protection, standing or kneeling on its neck, to stop it from wriggling away. After incisions are made in the fur with a knife, the skinner forces his or her fingers under the fur and taking care to ensure that the whole pelt comes away in one piece, rips the pelt from its writhing agonised body. A bullet or lethal injection is too expensive and the skinners say it's easier to rip an intact fur from a live warm body rather than one that is dead and inert. The ghastly task is completed when the helpless animal is entirely stripped of its fur - even the fur from its head is torn away.

The skinned animal is then cast aside to die in shock and excruciating agony.

This is probably the worst case of mass cruelty inflicted on helpless animals in the history of our so called "civilised" world. 2,000,000 cats and dogs skinned alive every year translates to 5,479 per day or 228 helpless animals suffering this unimaginable horror every hour of every day of every year - year after year.

The callous indifference shown by the Chinese government towards the suffering of the animals is inconceivable and completely unacceptable..

Cats and dogs have no animal rights in China and they never will unless we - the people who care - fight for those rights on their behalf.

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Taken from Animal Saviours anti-fur trade campaign.