Picture if you will...

...A wealthy woman struts down the street of any city, anywhere, wearing her prized fur coat, luxuriating in the soft feel and warmth of it against a cold winter day. But did she even once give a thought to exactly from where her 'prize' came?...

Her 'prize' is several animals, many skinned alive by humans who have nothing but money in their thoughts; money which bleeds the blood of countless and assorted breeds of animal.

While impossible to tell the stories of millions of silent animals, I can tell the story of one silently suffering victim.

Picture if you will, a raccoon dog in an Asian land far away. An animal who found himself in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.

Our furry friend may have been tempted by the promise of a bit of food, or may have been captured from the safe sanctuary of his wild world.

Whatever the case, the fate of this raccoon dog was sealed at the instant of capture. He will be made into a fur coat for some woman in another land. Here's how this, and other animals, spend their last hours:

After being locked in a tiny cage with no food, water, or shelter for up to several days, many animals begin to go crazy. They will run about their tiny confines desperately searching precious escape. Some will never realize there is no such escape and will continue to grow more frenzied.

Others will simply give up and stare out of the small spaces between the wires of the cage, seemingly contentedly awaiting their fate.

Finally, the real torture begins...

First, the animal will be slung several times to the ground, resulting in stunning and helping to ensure the animal is helpless and unable to fight back, or bite his tormentor.

After that is accomplished, some animals will have their necks broken, or will have limbs or just their paws cruelly hacked off.

In between, there are more beatings, punches, kicks, and the full body weight of a man on their necks.

Just when the animal seems to be mercifully dead, their tormentor steps off the neck and the animal resumes its' tortured and slowed breathing.

The tormentor begins to slice away at the animal, starting from the hind legs and making their way up to about half their body.

After several minutes, or hours in some cases, the hind paws are tied together and the animal is hung upside down and allowed to swing at random.

It's at this time that the animal is skinned- alive... Once the skin is slit from the hind legs, it is simply pulled from the body; pulled until the skin at the top of the head releases its' final shred of grip.

Some animals scream in extreme pain and fright. Others are so badly injured that they are unable to utter a sound; they suffer in the worst kind of silence there is.

During this process, the people doing this may laugh, joke, talk, or even scream at the animals for some unknown infraction. Perhaps they are upset because the animal is not suffering enough... Or maybe it's because the animal is not quite ready to shed its' skin.

Without any shred of doubt, though, the people behind this completely inhumane and utter cruelty do not feel anything remotely resembling compassion for these animals.

When the skin is finally torn from the body, the body is thrown onto a pile of countless other skinned animals- some still alive, albeit barely.

Those which are still alive are so weak from their torment that all they can do is lie there- their bodies jerking in the inevitable death twitch.

In one particularly telling and disturbing video I watched, at about minute five, there is one animal, said raccoon dog referred to above, that seems intent on knowing exactly who did this to him before he dies. He tries so hard to raise his body up, but he's only able to turn his head.

That is enough for him to give a long, intent gaze upon either his tormentor or the tormentor of another.

The animal then involuntarily flops down and is only able to lay there- completely skinned and covered in his own blood- to wait for death... death which is sure but so agonizingly slow.

This process is repeated the world over too many times to count, every day, for one reason: money.

I, for one, cannot even begin to comprehend who would knowingly and happily wear a fur coat knowing what happened to the source of the coat.

We do not do this to our children, our pets, and for the most part- other people.

So why do some cultures permit this type of torture? How can humans actually commit to this type of behavior, knowing they are inflicting maximum torture and horror against innocent beings?

If you love your fur coat, feel free to continue to wear your coat. Maybe the souls of the animals you are wearing are not gazing intently upon their former skins from their new world and asking you why...

This article has been submitted in affiliation with http://www.PetLovers.Com/ which is a site for Pet Forums.