If you choose to watch it, be forewarned that it is extremely graphic and horrible to watch. Some of the pups live for up to ten minutes after being skinned alive, eyes blinking and paws shaking. One manages to lift his head and stare into the camera.

PETA recommends that you take the pledge to be fur-free. Seems right to me. As they point out,

The globalization of the fur trade has made it impossible toknow where fur products come from. Skins move through international auctionhouses and are purchased and distributed to manufacturers around the world, andfinished goods are often exported. Chinasupplies more than half of the finished fur garments imported for sale in the United States.Even if a fur garment’s label says it was made in a European country, theanimals were likely raised and slaughtered elsewhere–possibly on an unregulatedChinese fur farm.

I was never in the habit of buying fur, but I suppose until now I didn’t really see why fur consumption was any different than all of the rest of the slaughter of animals for various products that goes on (in which I am implicated by my consumption habits). And given what we know about industrial farming, perhaps fur farming actually isn’t that much worse. But skinning animals alive does seem particularly awful.