Beware Gloves Made of Dog Skin Now on Global Market, PETA Warns; Dog Leather Factories Penetrated by PETA Asia

Video Too Horrifying for Most People to Watch Shows Terrified Dogs Bludgeoned and Skinned—Not Only for Meat but Also for Fashion

For Immediate Release:
December 17, 2014

Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382

With leather gloves and other accessories on many holiday shopping lists, PETA is alerting consumers to a flourishing dog-leather industry in eastern China, which exports the leather for small accessories all over the world. As first reported by Reuters this morning, a PETA Asia investigator has obtained a pair of dog-leather gloves (photos here), along with never-before-seen video footage in which workers in China’s Jiangsu province, where dog slaughter is a regional trade, grab terrified dogs with a metal noose, club them, and slit their throats. The animals’ skin is then cut off, and PETA Asia’s investigator saw workers peel the skin off dogs who were still alive. The investigator also documented that dog skin was turned into women’s fashion gloves, men’s work gloves, and other products that are exported around the world.

A dog slaughterer told PETA Asia’s investigator that the facility bludgeoned and skinned 100 to 200 dogs a day. About 300 dogs are kept in the compound, and some can be seen frantically climbing over one another in an attempt to escape the packed holding cell. Although the dog-meat industry in China is well known, this is the first time that PETA Asia has captured the production of Chinese dog leather on camera.

“Now that so many mass-market retailers are importing cheap leather from China, who can tell if that trim or those leather gloves or wallets are made out of dog skin or not?” asks PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “PETA is calling on shoppers worldwide to remember the terror that dogs and other animals endure at slaughter and make the safe, vegan choice in clothing and accessories for the holidays and every day.”

In China, despite years of campaigning by PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—and other organizations, there are still no penalties at all for abusing animals used for their skins.

Broadcast-quality raw footage, including footage inside glove factories, is available here, and photographs are available here and here. For more information, please visit PETA.org.