Before discussing unethical conduct or ethical abuses as they relate to the youth livestock program, I first have to make a few general comments that may help explain or clarify some of the points in my discussion. First, I only judge cattle shows and do not work with any of the other species. Also, my comments are simply my own opinions or feelings and are not a consensus or study of various judges' opinions. However, I would hope that others who do judge junior livestock shows would agree with some of these opinions or views.

I was heavily involved in the junior livestock program as a young person and still believe that it was one of the best activities that I was ever involved with in terms of preparing me for the challenges of everyday life. It is from this perspective that I judge junior livestock shows and work with the youth involved in these shows. I believe strongly that the junior livestock program is powerful in terms of its effects on young people. In my case, because of my parents, the program had a very positive influence on my development. The thing that worries me today is that the youth that are participating in these unethical practices are not being influenced in a positive but rather a negative direction.

I do not believe that money is the cause of all evils in the area of ethical abuses. I would agree that it is partly responsible, however, I think that many of the parents that are guilty of these abuses are reliving their childhood through their children’s livestock projects. I believe this happens more often than what we would want to believe and, in my opinion, these situations in which it is really the parent’s and not the kid’s project are the ones where a higher percentage of these ethical abuses are committed.

The other real problem in this whole area is the "jocks" who have such an influence on many of the exhibitors and their parents. In my opinion, most of the leaders and advisors are not influenced near as heavily by the "jocks" as the parents and/or exhibitors. I do not believe that the "jocks" are totally responsible for all of our problems, but I think that a large percentage of them are unethical people and I believe they are the people that serve as the network that spreads these unethical practices and illegal substances.

The other real problem is that these "jocks’ are idolized by many of our youth that are active in the junior livestock program. I do not understand why they are so respected as I put them in the same category as drug dealers and I guess many of them actually are drug dealers; however, they only deal different drugs than the ones that work the streets.

I have chosen to separate unethical practices or abuses into two categories. The first one being things that, in my opinion, are not going to be apparent to a judge at a junior livestock show. These include ownership abuses; injection of substances, whether it be to build muscle or to enhance movement; surgical manipulation and stomach pumping.

Not complying with ownership regulations has been a very common abuse in our state. Because of the timing of some of our shows and the fact that our steer shows are not near as competitive, in general, as many the shows in the Midwest, we have had steers "imported" into our state just prior to some of our major shows and, as you would expect, these calves have been shown very successfully. This has happened in other species besides cattle as well. At the two major junior livestock shows in our state, Cow Palace and the California State Fair, the management at those shows have implemented a DNA program in which cattle are sampled prior to the ownership deadline and then again when they arrive at the show. In my opinion, this has totally cleaned up all the problems we had in this area and I commend Mike Bradley at the California State Fair for implementing this program.

It is interesting that some of the families that were most abusive of the rules in this area have now moved into other species such as sheep where they can still abuse the rules. This year the California State Fair is going to implement a DNA program in the lamb show as well.

Injection of longer-acting substances such as clenbuterol or steroids to build muscle are impossible for a judge in the show ring to be able to determine. Some would say that this can be determined by the extreme muscle pattern that the animals exhibit or the way the cattle move that have been injected with steroids. I believe that we have some cattle that are extremely heavily muscled without any products being used and we have structurally incorrect cattle that move very similar to cattle that show the movement problems supposedly associated with steroid use.

Injection of movement-enhancing products like banamine are similar and impossible to determine. The injection of shorter-acting substances to build muscle such as pumping air or oil, or whatever other products that the "drug dealers" use, are again very difficult to determine, but in some cases may be apparent to a judge. In my opinion, drug testing is the only means to clean up the abuses in the area of injections or administration of substances.

Surgical manipulation and pumping of stomachs again are things that are not going to be apparent to a judge in the show ring. In the case of stomach pumping, I think shows should have people monitoring the fitting areas and when these people are caught doing these things, do not just give them a warning but ban them from the show forever.

The other category are ethical abuses that may be apparent to a judge. These include manipulative fitting techniques, the use of tranquilizers, the use of diuretics and unethical showing techniques. Any judge that is fooled by or allows manipulative or unnatural fitting of an animal to influence his or her opinion should not be judging shows. My brother-in-law Jarold Callahan, who has judged more shows then I ever will, uses the term "fabricated." He did something at the junior show at the Cow Palace this last spring where he simply would not look at steers that had been overly manipulated or were unnatural in their fitting techniques. I think this is one of the areas where judges can and should do their part to help clean up our current situation. In working a show, if a judge simply excused those exhibitors with the overly fitted animals to the bottom of the class as soon as they walked into the ring, I guarantee by the end of the day the "jocks" would be leaving their twine in the box where it belongs.

Unethical showing techniques are even easier to determine. I think it is important that the exhibitors know what they are and are not allowed to do in the ring. But if they are doing things such as lifting the front ends of lambs off the ground at a show where this is prohibited, then it should be taken care of in the ring by the manner in which the class is placed.

The use of diuretics or tranquilizers many times will not be apparent to a judge but some cases will be apparent in the ring. In the case of diuretics, we are going to try something at our jackpot show this spring where all the cattle are going to have the opportunity to drink all the water they want before they are weighed. The use of diuretics or severe feed restriction really bothers me personally because it is very cruel and inhumane to the animals.

Although judges cannot determine most of the ethical abuses that we have discussed, I think it is important to firmly enforce the ones that we can determine because we are in the best situation of anybody involved to enforce the rules. We do not have to justify beyond a reasonable doubt or document anything we do. We simply have to give a few oral reasons and any judge can make up reasons to justify anything. We can beat the best steer in the barn if that is want we want to do.

In closing, I believe that the ultimate responsibility in this area lies with exhibitor and/or parent. In cases where a parent is not involved with the project, the leader and/or advisor may assume this responsibility with the exhibitor. Having said that, I still think it is very important that all the people involved in this program have to assume some responsibility and do their part to improve the current situation. Just as important or maybe even more important, all people involved in the program need to do their part to help enforce the rules and when ethical abuses are committed they need to properly discipline those involved. The worst thing in this area, in my opinion, is when the people involved in the program simply turn their back on these problems because it is simpler and easier to do that than to enforce the rules.

We must remember and never forget that the livestock are just a mechanism to help develop and educate young people. The livestock are either going to be slaughtered or become a breeding project but the kids live with what they learned forever. I still firmly believe that the cheaters are the ultimate losers and eventually "what goes around comes around."

In terms of where we go from here, I believe that education is one of the key elements. I think we should have an educational program and that it should be mandatory that every exhibitor, parent and leader or advisor involved in the program go through the educational program before they are allowed to participate. I do not believe that education is going to have any influence on the people who are now committing these abuses; however, I do believe that we can influence the new people that are constantly coming into the program and get them headed in the right direction before the "low-lifes" can influence them.

I think we need to change our emphasis in judging these shows away from the animals and more toward the exhibitor, their project and their knowledge of their project and the industry. If we truly want to make these projects educational, then we have to move away from visual examination only. These types of programs have been already implemented to some extent in many states. If the nature of the competition is changed to some kind of award or placing system that involves a combination of factors or elements instead of only visual examination, then I believe many of these ethical abuses will be cleaned up by themselves because in this type of a system, manipulation of the animal is not nearly as important or as influential as it currently is when all we consider is visual evaluation of the animal.