Breaking Animal News

Raccoon Dog

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Every morning I scan through the National Newspapers for interesting animal related articles to share with you, earlier today I was stunned to read the following article entitled How dogs are dying for your fake UGG boots.  I must warn you that the article is disturbing reading and left me reeling and extremely angry.  However, I am very glad this has been reported.  It is important to note as well that the article is mainly expressing the disappointment and the journalist not being able to get a REAL pair of UGG boots with only a passing mention to the plight of animals (yes, this made me angry as well) but within the article is some useful information that we can utilize. 

In summary:

In China raccoon dogs, who are related to the domestic dog, are kept in horrific conditions and then skinned alive on a fur farm so that their fur can be used on products like fake UGG boots.  As there is currently no ban on this fur being sold there is a risk that consumers may be fooled into buying imitation UGG boots produced with the fur of the abused raccoon dogs.

UGG boots are made from sheepskin (which I am vehemently against) and UGG Australia claim that their sheepskin is produced in a humane way.  Fraudulent websites are selling cut price UGG boots labelled as 100% sheepskin when in actual fact they are trimmed with real animal fur.

What can we do?

Don’t buy UGG boots or imitation UGG boots

Read the article and share it with your friends

If you do come across a website selling fake UGG boots report them to the Metropolitan Polices e-crime unit

Two sites mentioned in the article are clearanceuggsoutlet.co.uk and uggbootsukonline.co.uk so another idea would be to visit these sites and attempt to contact the owners with your views on what they are doing – try to keep it polite and informative.

It may be worth leaving a comment at the bottom of the article like I have mentioning that it is a pity that obtaining a real pair of UGG boots seems to be the only issue causing concern.  In order to leave a comment you need to register first.

If I hear of anything else we can do you will be the first to hear about it.

Thank you.