As was mentioned earlier, make sure your facts are correct, before you accuse anyone of doing this. A steer that has been pumped with air under the skin can be identified fairly easily to someone familiar with what an animal is supposed to feel like. A few years ago, when I was Chairman of the Beef show at Canadian Western Agribition, I received a complaint that a steer had been pumped with air. I was not sure how to prove that it was, so I took a long time steer jock with me to inspect this steer. When we put our hands on the steer it was very obvious, as the animal's hide was noticeably raised and you could actually feel the air between the hide and the animals body. I asked the steer jock I had taken with me, how I could prove that this steer had actually been pumped, and he suggested that I just go to the steer owner and tell him that we felt that we could prove the steer had been tampered with.
Fortunately, this complaint came to me prior to the show, and the steer was just being dressed to go to class when I approached the owner. I told him that we had received a complaint, and I was just following it up. I gave the owner the option of showing the steer and having him inspected by the show veterinarians immediately after he came out of class, or he could leave the steer in the stall and not show him. I felt that he had not tampered with the steer he would have shown him and allowed the vets to inspect the steer, and if he had tampered with the steer, he would not show up at the ring. I went back to see if the steer was at the show ring a few minutes later, and found out that he had gone directly from the fitting chute to the washrack, rather than to the show ring. That is the only time I have experienced air injection in a show animal, and I think I would be able to identify it now if I ever saw it again.
