Real fur is routinely mislabelled as faux fur or by exotic sounding names such as China Wolf or Chat de Chine, and used as trim on garments, toys, hair trinkets and pets' products. It is also often shaven and dyed to escape detection. A number of retailers we've approached recently about real fur in their shops, have been under the impression that they are selling only faux fur. In such cases, we've been able to make these retailers more vigilant against mislabelling. In two instances, the fur was laboratory tested and found to be real.

People often mistakenly believe that, if an item is inexpensive, it must be faux, however the lives of cats, dogs and other animals are worth so little in countries such as China, that it costs them less to use real fur on their products than faux. In China alone, more than 5 000 cats and dogs are cruelly killed for their fur every day. By informing retailers, Fur Free is raising awareness of these dangers.