The Leather on Those Golf Gloves Might Come From a Stolen Pet in Thailand

Police in northeastern Thailand made a grisly discovery last week. Abandoned in a forest near the border with Laos were hundreds of dog skins alongside a pile of dog bones.They were probably left by smugglers who wanted to take them through Laos and then on to Vietnam or China. In those countries, demand for dog parts for consumption in restaurants is strong.

Not just the dog meat is prized. Factories use leather from dog skin for use in everything from drums to guitars, says John Dalley, co-founder and vice-president of the Soi Dog Foundation, a nongovernmental organization in Thailand devoted to canine welfare. Manufacturers of golf gloves also prize dog leather, Dalley adds, especially from the skin of the testicles of male dogs  “because that skin is particularly soft.” (Alibaba.com, the business-to-business website owned by Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba, has lots of listings for gloves made from dogs.)

Dalley, an Englishman who retired to the Thai island of Phuket a decade ago, is optimistic that governments in Southeast Asia are finally taking effective action to crack down on the widespread illegal business. Last year, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand agreed to stop the trade in live dogs for use in the dog-meat industry in Vietnam. And in February, the Vietnamese government pledged to inspect border crossings more closely to stop traders from taking dogs into the country. The measures are having an impact. While some half-a-million dogs a year were probably transported in 2011, he says, now “the numbers are well down.”

Still, as the March 25 discovery of abandoned dog skins shows, a lot of work remains to be done. Dog smugglers might be trying to outsmart the authorities by switching away from live dogs and focusing on frozen dog meat, says Dalley, who founded Soi Dog Foundation with his wife, Gill, after moving to Phuket in 2003.

And while the Vietnamese government may be trying harder to prevent smugglers from crossing the border between Vietnam and Laos. Traders have plenty of resources to bribe officials. “The smugglers are paying huge amounts of money to authorities to turn the other way,” says Dalley.

Thailand has a large population of stray dogs wandering the streets of major towns and cities, but most of those captured for meat or pelts are stolen from pet owners or temples. “Stray dogs are extremely difficult to catch,” explains Dalley. “It’s far easier to catch pet dogs or unwanted service dogs.” The illegal trade is based on “extreme cruelty from start to finish,” he adds. “We see over 100 dogs stuffed into cages in the back of pickup trucks. Lots of dogs are skinned alive. It’s a horrendous industry with absolutely no regulation.”

Officials taking action against the dog trade are not necessarily motivated by concern about stolen pets and animal welfare. Southeast Asian governments are trying to fight the spread of rabies, making the trade in illegal dogs a public health issue. About 100 people in Vietnam die annually from rabies, with most cases caused by unvaccinated dogs.

With traders transporting so many animals, chances that dogs will escape and spread rabies are high. “Some of the trucks have 2,000 dogs on them. and inevitably, some will escape,” Dalley says. “You are looking at potential of spreading rabies throughout the region because of mass movement of dogs.”


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History of Gloves

The story of gloves goes way back to prehistoric times. Cavemen wore gloves to protect their hands and the gloves took the form of bags that resembled a primitive type of mitten.

After the Norman Conquest, in England, royalty and dignitaries wore gloves as a badge of distinction.

In fact the glove became meaningful as a token. To throw a gauntlet at the feet at an adversary was challenging his integrity and an invitation to a duel. The glove to challenge personal battle remained part of English law for almost 800 years.

The 12th century saw wearing gloves as a definite part of fashionable dress and during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 no respectable and well-dressed woman would be seen in public without them. The popularity of gloves grew and became more accessible to the common person.

From the 14th and 15th centuries onwards gloving centers began to develop and London became the hub of the glove trade.

During the 16th and 17th centuries gloves were extravagantly decorated and were made of leather, linen, silk or lace and were fringed, embroidered or jeweled. However, after the 17th century the emphasis became upon a proper fit and gloves became less ornamental.

The craft had been protected against foreign imports until the reign of Edward IV in 1462 and controls became less stringent. In 1826 the barrier against imports was swept away in favor or the 19th century philosophy of free trade.

The philosophy of free trade had detrimental effects on the workers and their masters. During 1826-1866 the number of masters deteriorated rapidly from 120 to only 40. Then the labor situation altered with the Great War as it brought an expanding engineering industry to the city with its higher earnings.

The early part of the 19th century saw methods practiced in the glove trade changing from those pursued for hundreds of years. There was a greater use of capital and division of labor between the men who cut the gloves and the women who sewed them.

Significant changes in the industry were made and the most significant was the establishment of glove sizes and method of cutting, which was devised by a French Master Glover Xavier Jouvin (1800-1844). Jouvin made use of uniformly proportioned knives, which were graded for size and gave a constant shape for the makers and established a reliable fit.

Gloves were formerly seen as a contingency merchandise and one had to try on several pairs to find a pair that fitted adequately. Now all hand sizes could easily find a pair of well fitting gloves. The development of high-grade steel for the knives and the creation of the hand lever benefited Jouvin’s idea.

After the Great War young labor was attracted away from the traditional employer as the engineering industry boomed offering higher wages. To make matters worse there were large-scale imports of foreign made gloves that sold at prices far below the cost of production in the UK. The onset of World War 2 brought about further decline that has continued to the present day.


Article Source: Gloves Guide