According to America's Humane Society, which highlighted the trade, the focus of exports is now Europe, where fluffy cat and dog skins now account for a large number of coat trims, snow-boot linings and hairbands in even the most respectable mainstream shops with consumers, and probably the shops themselves, blissfully unaware that they are buying and selling ex-Rovers and Felixes.

ECONOMIST: How much is that dead doggy in the window?