Persuasive essay: Why dog and cat fur sale and import should be banned in Canada.

Special thanks to Izzy who shared with us the essay that she recently submitted for her English class. This 12-year-old

received an “A” on her assignment and she clearly has a bright future as an animal activist. Thanks Izzy!

A Persuasive Essay: Why dog and cat fur sale and import should be banned in Canada

By: Izzy, grade 7

These are some of the reasons dog and cat fur should be banned in Canada. There numerous reasons why this should really

be illegal.

Many people have lost their dogs and cats because they have been stolen to make trim on coats, toys, hats, and other clothing.

Its not so much about the grief people must go through when their dogs or cats are taken, this essay is about the pain and

suffering the animals go through when they are taken to the places where they will meet their cruel deaths.

DogInChainFurTrimJacket

One of the more important issues about fur trade is that there are no penalties for abusing animals on fur farms in China,

which is the world’s largest fur exporter. Mother animals, who are driven crazy from rough handling and intense confinement

and have nowhere to hide while giving birth, often kill their babies after delivering litters. Disease and injuries are widespread,

and animals suffering from anxiety-induced psychosis chew on their own limbs and throw themselves repeatedly against the

cage bars. They found cats and dogs languishing in tiny cages, visibly exhausted. Some had been on the road for days,

transported in flimsy wire-mesh cages with no food or water.

Up to 800 animals are loaded onto each truck, with cages stacked on top of each other. Cages containing live animals are

commonly tossed from the tops of the trucks onto the ground 10 feet below, shattering the legs of the animals inside them.

Many of the animals still had collars on, a sign that they were once someone’s beloved companion, stolen to be made into a fur

coat.

The most unbearable thing about fur trade is the cruel way they kill the animals. Before they are skinned, animals are

yanked from their cages, thrown to the ground, and bludgeoned. Undercover investigators from Swiss Animal Protection/EAST

International found that many animals are still alive and struggling desperately when workers flip them onto their backs or

hang them up by their legs or tails to skin them.

When they begin to cut the skin and fur from an animal’s leg, the free limbs kick and writhe. Workers stomp on the necks

and heads of animals who struggle too hard to allow a clean cut. The people who work in fur mills have absolutely no concern

for the animals, and will do things to cut costs, usually at the animal’s expense. When the fur is finally peeled off over the

animals’ heads, their hairless, bloody bodies are thrown onto a pile of those who have gone before them. Some are still alive,

breathing in ragged gasps and blinking slowly. Some of the animals’ hearts are still beating five to 10 minutes after they are

skinned. One investigator recorded a skinned raccoon dog on the heap of carcasses who had enough strength to lift his

bloodied head and stare into the camera. When investigators went into another animal market in southern China, they were

horrified to find dogs and cats being bludgeoned, hanged, bled to death, and strangled with wire nooses so that their fur could

be turned into trim and trinkets. Everything about the methods these people use to kill animals is inhumane. Horrible videos

have been taken of people hitting animals repeatedly, and then skinning them alive.

Unfortunately, no federal humane slaughter law protects animals on fur factory farms, and killing methods are gruesome.

Because fur farmers care only about preserving the quality of the fur, they use slaughter methods that keep the pelts intact

but that can result in extreme suffering for the animals. Some animals even wake up while they are being skinned. Animals

have clamps attached to or rods forced into their mouths and anuses, and they are painfully electrocuted. Genital electrocution

—deemed “unacceptable” by the American Veterinary Medical Association in its “2000 Report of the AVMA Panel on Euthanasia”

—causes animals to suffer from cardiac arrest while they are still conscious.

This fur from China is often deliberately mislabeled as fur from other species and is exported to countries throughout the

world to be sold to unsuspecting customers in retail stores. Since China supplies more than half of the finished fur garments

imported for sale in the United States and since dog and cat fur is often mislabeled, if you’re buying fur, there’s no way to tell

whose skin you’re wearing, including that of a dog or cat.

This cruelty cannot go on. After everything I have learned about animal cruelty, I think fur mills should be banned. It’s wrong to

abuse animals in such a brutal way for profit. So, in my opinion, cruelty like that of fur mills should be banned, so let’s do our

part and ban dog and cat fur in Canada.

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Established in 1953, The Fur-Bearers is a charitable, non-partisan organization whose goals are to end the commercial fur trade and promote solutions for wildlife coexistence in communities. Your donation is tax-deductible. Charitable registration number: 130006125RR0002

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