WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT. Dog skin produced in the slaughterhouses are used in products destined for export to the West, footage from an animal rights group shows. Footage taken by People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) shows workers stood by a door at a slaughterhouse the northern province of Hebei. As a dog (circled) is led through the door, a man kills it with a heavy stick. The skin is made into gloves, shoes and other products destined for export. Bottom right, dog hides drying in a room in the Hebei factory.
Leather gloves, shoes and other goods being sold in British shops and online may be made out of dogs slaughtered in horrific factories in China, it has been claimed.
Dog skin produced in the slaughterhouses are used in products, labelled real leather, destined for export to the West, according to an animal rights group.
Footage taken by People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) shows workers stood by a door at a slaughterhouse in the northern province of Hebei. As dogs are led through the door, the men kill them with a heavy stick. Sometimes it takes several blows to finish off the unwitting animals.
Meathooks sway grimly in the foreground of the upsetting footage. PETA Asia's investigator saw workers peel the skin off dogs who were still alive.
Skin looks the same, whoever it comes from, and Chinese dog killers are not likely to advertise their skins honestly, so it's impossible to tell if those leather gloves or wallets are made out of dog, cow, pig, or goat skin.
'PETA is calling on British shoppers to consider the terror that dogs and other animals endure when they're mercilessly slaughtered and make the safe, vegan choice in clothing and accessories for the holidays and every day.'
Without conducting expensive DNA tests, it is virtually impossible to know exactly what kind of animal leather is made from.
The organisation said it visited three slaughterhouses and six processing plants in central China during a year-long investigation into the slaughter of dogs and the production of dog skin.
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 the production of Chinese dog leather has been captured on camera.
News agency Reuters confirmed the use of dog skin during a visit to an open-air leather processing workshop, where workers stretched washed hides to dry in the sun.
With dog meat restaurants popular in many parts of the country, several establishments later sell the animals' skin to leather producers, workers at the Hebei workshop said.
PETA and other rights groups say dogs are slaughtered throughout the country, with regulations on animal slaughter poorly enforced.
Dog skin yields a tough leather of generally poorer quality than that of sheep or cows, but which is also cheaper to make.
The plants PETA visited were producing leather for export, said Haleigh Chang, one of the organisation's representatives.
'One owner of a processing plant told us they export dog skin as lamb skin,' she said, adding that lack of transparency on the part of producers made it hard to estimate the size of the dog skin sector within the overall leather industry.
China has faced criticism for its treatment of animals, including bears, whose bile is used in traditional medicines. Tigers are also bred and killed, in some areas, for their pelts and bones.
Curled from:Daily mail
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