Attacks on Our Lifestyle: Dave Duquette from Western Justice

Dave Duquette from Western Justice joins me to discuss some major legal battles facing the horse industry that threaten our way of life, possibly the biggest one right now being the Horse Protection Act that goes into effect this coming February. That is, unless we can block it! 

Animal rights organizations are mobilized and causing issues, and Western Justice is fighting them for us. But they need our help. More information can be found at these links: 

https://www.westernjustice.info/horseprotectionact
www.westernjustice.info
www.wjustice.org

Read up, get involved, and spread the word! 

#horsetraining #horseriding #horses #equine #legislation

If you like the show, please be sure to share it or subscribe/follow/rate and review! All these things help get the show out there and keeps it going!

For questions, comments, or ideas: ThePhilosophicalCowgirl@gmail.com

Transcript

Hey there, and welcome to the Philosophical Cowgirl. I'm your host, Sarah Geis, a former philosophy professor and current full time horse person. This show is where the horse world meets the deep questions of life. In each episode, I'll share insights from my own learning process and sometimes discuss fascinating ideas with some of the brightest minds out there.

I'm a relentless learner. So in this podcast, you get to ride along with me on that lifelong journey. Whether you're a philosopher at heart. A horse person looking for something new to listen to, or you're just curious about how these two worlds intersect. This is the show for you.

In this episode, we talk about several things of consequence to the average horse owner. We know about a lot of these things through the work that Western Justice is doing. [00:01:00] One of the things that we're going to talk about is the Horse Protection Act, or HPA.

This is set to go into effect in February of 2025, and it has massive ramifications. I've put a link in the description of this episode so you can read more about it.

I'm here with Dave Duquette from Western Justice, and I really appreciate you being here. You bet. Thanks for having me on. Well, what I would like to do is We are going to talk about the issues that Western Justice, uh, is interested in fighting and is seeing happening in this country. But first of all, I kind of want to get a little background on you, and if you can tell me kind of where you're from, how you got into the horse industry, and then how you ended up at Western Justice.

I know that's probably a long story, but it's a lot. There's a lot of history there. Um, so I've been I trained horses for 20 plus years, mostly rainers and [00:02:00] rain cow horses. I, I got into the rain cow horse back in my first snaffle bidder was in 99. So, um, that was a long time ago now. Um, but that's, that's where I, I basically based most of my, uh, Show career was in the after 99 was almost totally in the cow horse world.

So, um, enjoyed that. I saw in oh six when the market was just going nuts and we were oh five. Oh, six was kind of the heyday. There was. At least 4 million more horses, domestic horses in the United States back in 05, and they were a lot more affordable. They were a lot, uh, the average person could be involved. Um, there was a lot of back, what we call the back yarders or people who just had a horse because they wanted one, they could afford it and they, you know, they would, uh, keep one or two of them around and you know, [00:03:00] I, I grew up southeast of Seattle and northeast of Tacoma and over in that area, those two counties had more horses per square mile than any place in the nation at one time.

And that's when, that's when Bob Avila was up here, Steve Metcalf, uh, a bunch of those guys that were up in this area showing a lot. And there was a quarter horse show every weekend, uh, throughout the, almost the whole year, except for maybe on holidays and even some of them on holidays. But there was, there was horse shows, team ropings, there was, you know, all, all kinds of different cow horse events, cutting it.

There was three or four cutting clubs up here. It was a big event, our big industry up here. And then we also had the Hermiston horse sale, which is three miles from my house, which would run about three times a year. It would run about 14, 1500 horses through it every time. I [00:04:00] mean, it'd go three days. And they would run that many horses.

They'd go almost nonstop all night long for the whole, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then into Monday, the canner horses always sold on Monday. But, uh, um, you know, when they started, I got into politics and never paid it. I'm a high school educated Marine. I went in the Marine Corps right out of high school.

So, um, I, when I saw this. the horse slaughter market going down and they, I heard about it. I thought because, and it's, I, I don't know if it's a unique perspective, but it's a perspective that most people at the higher levels don't have because I sold horses from the, you know, 1, 500 range, which was pretty rare because I was into the show horses more, but I was getting a lot of the The trainers like Avila and those guys, I was getting their rejects or the ones that they needed to sell.

So they get their client, their customer to buy [00:05:00] a new one. They couldn't get out of there or an older horse. So I had a lot of the, the team pinners, the, you know, before this, even before sorting really got big, but. The mounted shooters, the team pinners, the rodeo people that wanted the, wanted to pick up a broke older horse.

Um, the youth kids, I had a lot of those people. I sold a lot of horses too. And those, I was selling probably half million dollars worth of horses a year. In today's standards, that doesn't sound like a lot, but back then I was, I might crack a nut at a 20, 000 horse I sold, but most of mine were between the five to 15, 000 range.

 And I was on top of that market. When I saw the, them shutting down the horse slaughter market and the slaughter plants, I went straight in front of. The, you know, Frank Merrill was the president at the time at AQHA. I was at the [00:06:00] AQHA world show showing, um, Bill Brewer was there, uh, all the big names.

They were all standing at Avila's stalls and I walked right in the middle of them in 06 and I said, guys, what are we doing about this? This is going to ruin the industry and horse welfare and here I am, somebody who never paid attention to politics. I mean, I voted, but I didn't like pay attention, wasn't into politics.

And they just looked at me and they were like, there's nothing we can do. It's done. We're going to figure out how to deal with it without it. And I go, oh boy, this is going to get bad. So I thought I got just enough tenacity. I know a lot of very wealthy people from being in the horse business selling horses for them or to them or, you know, brokering deals.

So I thought I'm going to, I'm going to do something about it. I got just enough tenacity to do something about it. So I started in on that and very quickly became the face. Of trying to keep horse [00:07:00] slaughter in the United States because everybody wanted a villain right on all the animal rights groups wanted a villain on that um And here I was You know, this young horse trainer that was out there speaking out about it.

And it, it made me, it made me their villain. So I became very famous very quickly for that, even though that's probably not something you want to be famous for. But anyway, that's, that's how I got started in the politics. And I, when I first went to DC, I had a tremendous. Group of three guys that were my mentors there.

And I don't know if you know how DC works. Most people don't, but if you go over there, you might get a meeting with your Senator or Congressman. And that's about it. Yeah. And you'd be lucky to get those meetings.

And so when I was over there, I had, not only did I have Conrad Burns. Who is a Republican, but it was, [00:08:00] It wasn't so polarized and you could go across the aisle and we could go talk to Republicans, uh, Democrats, mostly blue dogs.

There was a lot of blue dogs back then. So we were able to get a lot done. I mean, I worked with Leonard Boswell from Iowa. He was a blue dog Democrat from Iowa and he was one of our biggest champions. Steve King from Iowa was another one, but he's a Republican. So we work both sides of the aisle and we were able to do that back then.

 Here I am, this guy that's trying to keep horse slaughter going and I started noticing all the other things that the horse industry wasn't doing at that point.

I got involved with the American horse council. I started, I shouldn't say involved. I, well, I guess it is involved, but. I got around them and started realizing how feckless they were and how they really didn't do anything at all. They, any hard issue, they would sit and ride the fence. So, and I mean, at best, that's what they would do. So we were, [00:09:00] I started calling them out in oh eight and had a major coup attempt going in oh eight just so everybody knows they're, they're, they are run by the jockey club and the thoroughbred world is less than 5 percent of the horses, domestic horse in the United States. And they are running this whole DC effort on all of this stuff.

And they think these guys that are a bunch of, most of them are a bunch of wealthy guys that don't ride horses. They watch somebody else ride him and watch him run around the track. That's all fine and good. I'm not disparaging them for that. But what I am disparaging them for is the fact that they are doing the bidding and making rules.

The western horse world is 75 to 80 percent of domestic horses in the United States, right?

So, and and because of the decisions that jockey [00:10:00] club and horse council have made on throwing the Tennessee walkers under the bus as a sacrificial lamb. Yes, they had some problems. Yes, they stopped it. They put in laws to make soaring illegal. And they did that 35 40 years ago, almost 50. Now, um, they did that.

And now they're they're doing exactly what we told everybody they were going to do for the last. I mean, I've been singing about this for the last 14 years since 2010 that the that the Horse Protection Act and USDA is coming into our world and everybody looked at me like, Dave, put your tinfoil hat back on and get back in your basement.

And, and, you know, everybody in the horse and all they'll never come out. They'll never get us. We'll never, you know, the team ropers associations, uh, you know, the rodeo world, everybody. Uh, they're [00:11:00] never going to stop us. And that's not everybody. I shouldn't say it's everybody in those industries. There's a lot of people that believe what I'm saying and, and, and are a part of things and high ups in the PRCA and people like that, people that have, you know, knowledge and jobs that are accountable, um, But they, there was a lot of people, stock contractors and people like that.

They'll never be able to stop me. I have 500 horse, personal horses, and they're never going to stop me from doing what I, well, it's coming. Oh, well, all the, all the things, you know, kind of fast forwarding through protect the harvest. I, because of my. My stance on horse slaughter and being on Bret Baer's show in 2011.

Um, it was, it was kind of funny because I was at the, right after we got the riders off the appropriations bill to be able to open plants back up. [00:12:00] Yeah, that was November 18th, 2011. Um, during the cutting horse futurity that year, Brett Baer had me on a show and I was standing in front of the live remote.

I was in front of the the the horses running in the stockyards and the big bronzes in the stockyards. Um, In Fort Worth and standing out there in the snow, but uh, we, Forrest Lucas saw me on that and he thought, man, if this guy's willing to get up and talk about this, I want him to come work for me at Protect the Harvest.

So not too long after that, I went to work for Forrest and ended up running Protect the Harvest for quite a while and was, um, you know, we, we did a lot of really good stuff there, but most of it was behind the scenes. And that's, you know, that's part of part of what I struggle with right now is all the things that Forrest did with his money to save all of us.

[00:13:00] And put his money out there. The horse industry has to do now. The horse industry has to pay for it because we don't have a forest Lucas right now. We don't have a forest Lucas. It'll spend the money to do the, do all the things that need to be done and need to be taken care of. And, and there's a lot of, I get people asking me all the time.

Well, what do you guys do? And one of the things that we do that most people don't even understand is. Every year, every, every bill cycle, there is minimum, probably 15 things that we block and upwards of 50 at times on certain years when, when the, the animal rights groups are very active. Um, and we block those things because we have relationships and we've, we've done the right thing to build the relationships where I can call A [00:14:00] senator or congressman that's on a committee and I can say, hey, here's all the reasons why this is bad.

Here's all the reasons why you need to stop it. And they're able to stop something in committee. Well, there'd be. Like I said, there's probably 15 to 50 things that get stopped every year. Um, we can't go talk about, we don't go talk about, cause I'm not going to burn my sources or who did it, or, you know, go out there and say, Hey, we, we did this and we did that, um, you know, the, the obvious things that we do, you know, like getting the Hammond's pardon, that was a big deal and even our own industries, 

and can you explain in a nutshell what that was, what that pardon was to people who don't know? So the Hammonds were, and this is a, it's so funny because people have wrote, there's a book out there about it. There's, uh, people have tried to get the rights to do the movie and the Hammonds don't [00:15:00] want any fanfare.

So the Hammonds had a, in a nutshell, there was a giant reservoir on their deeded ground on top of the steam mountains.

That the Corps of Engineers, I think, was the ones that had built it back in the 40s, somewhere around there. It's probably, I'll bet you it's 250 to 500 acre reservoir and it's deep. I mean, it's 90 feet deep in spots, full of water. So in the West, you can, if you can prove that somebody doesn't have beneficial use of water, you have to document it for 10 years.

You can go to court and you can try to obtain those water rights. For Well, this was on the Hammonds deeded ground on top of the steam mountains, and it was, they didn't have the water rights to it. And the only person who would have beneficial use to that would be them because there was an outlet that came down right into there.

farming ground and all that. So they [00:16:00] had, they were the only ones that really had beneficial use. So they were able to prove that in 2010, uh, nine or 10, and then in court in the ninth circuit, and they won the water rights to that. Well, that's when all hell broke loose and the federal government came after them.

They made a bunch of, they made up a bunch of charges. To be able to to prosecute them for two fires that were back burns that were coming lightning strikes that were coming started fires and the fires were coming right towards their home place. So they lit two backfires two different years. Um, it burned up about 140 acres.

I think total between the two of BLM ground, which out in that area is nothing. I mean, 140 acres is like, you know, spitting distance out there. And I mean, cause you're talking about the biggest [00:17:00] county in Oregon with the smallest population of people in any County. And it's by double, I think the largest County in Oregon.

Well, they, so they, they lit these two back burns. They burned up 140 acres or 42 acres, whatever it is. And they, they, uh, the federal government used these trumped up charges that they made. To file, uh, uh, law, a suit against them to our file charges against them under the anti terrorism effective death penalty act, which is, which was designed after the Oklahoma city bombing, it came into effect.

So if someone burned federal ground or damaged federal ground in that way, then they could go after him under this act. The minimum, the minimum sentence is five years on that. If you're convicted. So they go into court in Pendleton, the court, the [00:18:00] judge says, you know, he throws out all the bullshit charges.

I mean, all of them, except for the Hammonds admitted to lighting those backfires that burned up 142 acres. Well, this law was never designed for anything like that. That kind of stuff happens every day. And we were able to show, you know, the, are they, so they got charged as terrorists under that act because they were being charged under that act.

They got, they were guilty under that act. And the judge said, well, I can't, he had some very eloquent words. I'm not going to remember him exactly, but he was basically, it was shocked the conscious. Conscience to, to give them five years, these good people people who would do anything for the, you know, the community and all that, and given so much, it would shock the conscience to give them five years in prison.

So he gave Dwight 30 days and, and Steve, and I think. Six [00:19:00] months or something like that. Cause he had to, well, he ended up, they got out and then the federal government, the Obama administration sent this gal. I mean, this gal was, uh, probably a Willamette university. I want to say a graduate cause that's where all the greenies come from.

And she, they used her. She'd never tried a case in her life. They used her to go in and, and it ruined her career by the way, doing this. But they used her, made her a us attorney. Used her to go back after the Hammonds and go back, send them back to their, to jail for their, their, uh, minimum five year sentence.

And in, in the back room, it was never in writing anywhere. The federal government told them that they would give them, they would make it all go away if they just gave them the reservoir back in the 400 acres up around it, if they just gave it to the feds. Well, [00:20:00] I wish we had, I wish they would have put that in writing, but the Hammonds, you know, when they said it, they were just like, no, we're not going to do that.

We'll, we'll take our lumps and go. 

 So, so anyway, that was the, the Hammond deal in a nutshell. We got him out. Um, still haven't got their permits back. Uh, secretary Zinke, the last thing he did leave in the, in the interior department, he, uh, called the last, I mean, the last phone call he made. Was to Dwight Hammond and said, I got your permits back.

And then the BLM and the bureaucrats have all held off and not, not done what they were supposed to do, what they were mandated to do. And then, you know, fast forward into, uh, the next couple of years, there was, uh, president Trump did a very, uh, a great executive order to mandate these. [00:21:00] Agencies go out and and assure that, you know, all of our, all of the, uh, people were getting, you know, their permits back and we're back to grazing the way we're supposed to be before all these wildfires.

I mean, we've got direct correlation between the wildfires and the. And the, you know, lack of grazing. Oh, I believe it. Going back to the slaughter issue, uh, it's so easy to persuade people who aren't in the industry that slaughter is a bad thing. Because all you have to do is appeal to emotion, right? All you have to do is say, gosh, all these horses are being killed.

And there's lots of good horses in there that are just being sent to slaughter unjustly, um, but what we need is education for people to understand that this is a really complicated issue. And people who love horses. Often are also pro slaughter, you know, because of lots of practical reasons and [00:22:00] lots of welfare reasons.

And, and all of these issues are that way where, you know, the, the person who doesn't really, isn't in the industry has kind of a bird's eye view and a knee jerk reaction that seems obvious. That isn't until you get someone like y'all out there to say, Hey, look, here's how it looks from our perspective.

The people who actually are on the ground dealing with it on a day to day basis. 

My lobbyist that I use is also the lobbyist for the Tennessee walking horse world, and they are, um, he's very, very, very good, very knowledgeable about all of this stuff, but we've been basically blocking this new rule for 14 years and in this last round, they were able to get the rule passed.

And with that new rule, they're going to, um, bleed into the Western horse world. So what's it, what are, what's the verbiage there? Um, well, [00:23:00] for one over the last 14 years, they've been able to slip in there. Three or four times. I think it's four now in the whole act that has where all domestic horses are covered under the horse protection act.

 You're gonna have to go read the HPA and the new rule. They've been hiding the new rule. The only reason we know some of the stuff that's happening and is going into that new rule is the fact that there's a lawsuit right now against it. That the, my lobbyist is a part of, um.

We've been watching and showing support for that. Um, but, uh, in the court documents, they had to admit that Dr. Reiner, who is the head veterinarian at APHIS and USDA, has said before, and we've called him out for it, he said he could see where riding a horse could be considered an act of soring.

So I'm like, well, pump the brakes guys. You [00:24:00] can't, who's going to be the arbiter of that? Who's going to be the one making those decisions? This is ridiculous. And then you sit and watch these, um, two veterinarian, these gals, young gals that are veterinarians probably never practiced a day in their life, but they're veterinarians and they work at APHIS, um, talking about all these issues and everything going on and, and what the rule is going to do.

And it's funny because all I could think about listening to those two was the way they talked and the way they acted was like, um, the Saturday night live skit with Alec Baldwin and those two, the, the piece piece readies balls, you know, as Christmas balls, little doughnuts that that's the way they talk the whole time.

And those are the people making decisions for us. And they're unilaterally doing it, but it's, so as of February 1st, if we don't get this thing blocked, which I feel like we have a really good chance of getting it blocked, but [00:25:00] as of February 1st, they're going to have every horse show, every horse sale, every horse expo, every event with horses.

Is going to have to register with USDA and they even admitted in there in there and we've got some quotes that are going to be coming out on our social media from the gals. We, we recorded some of that, um, where she talked about how speed events are not. Are exempt under the horse protection act, but, so the specific thing came up was four H and Jim Connors with, uh, you know, that have, uh, Western horsemanship or pleasure or, you know, that kind of stuff, any of those events are covered.

under the Horse Protection Act. They are not exempt. So, you're talking about a whole mess of things that are going to happen. And here's the other kicker that scared the living daylights out of the [00:26:00] NCHA when I was down there, and it should every horse show, is for every horse, every horse, you have to have, um, one inspector per hundred horses.

Well, the N. C. H. A. Futurity is a month and that's at that's at a cost of 1000 a day average per inspector. Wow. So the N. C. H. A. Futurity at 2300 horses there. So that's 23, 000 a day for a month long show. It's unsustainable. It's, it's not something that can be, you know, put together. So, and these people have now have free reign instead of like in the Tennessee walking world where they were able to just go the, you had to go stand in line to get your horse inspected before you showed.

And those lines at a Tennessee walking show, there might be a hundred horses. I mean, you're lucky at a big show [00:27:00] to get that many. Well, they go stand in line for five hours. to get their horse inspected to go in every class. Every class they go in, they got to go get it inspected again. And then if you win, you get inspected again.

But if you don't, then you're, you're all right for the next one or whatever, or you're, you go back in line. So if you've got in like in our world, the Western world, you go show your horse and you're not pros got to show it or you're not pros going to show in two classes, two different class. I go to cow or shows where.

Some of my non pros show three times in one day. You know, and, and it's two or three times. Well, they'd have, they'd be spending 15 hours. You know, in an inspection line and it's probably going to be way worse than that because there's going to be so many horses there. So you've got that and then you've got, uh, now another part of this rule that came out in the court documents that they're not talking about yet and they want to [00:28:00] dance around and not say is that.

If you go into the pen and your horse gets hurt or scratched or bumped or hits it goes over a jump and hits a rail and it scratches itself or it goes, you know, it clips itself going down the fence or whatever that is, you are now if they see it, you are now in violation of soring your horse, which is a felony in most states.

Well, and then even at the Olympics, this is related, um, to that there was a dressage horse that Yeah. Bumped itself and I zoomed in on it, you know, I took a screenshot of it and zoomed in, and that was the most negligible little non cutt. And, and they pulled the horse, you know, and Well, and it would've won that.

It would've won. Yeah. That horse would've won. And if it didn't have a white Fetlock, nobody would have seen it. Nobody would have seen it. There would have been a non issue. That's so true. [00:29:00] And these USDA people that we're talking about bringing in, um, what's the percentage of those people that will be horse people that'll actually be able to use their head and use some common sense and say, all right, well, in the grand scheme of things, that's not a huge deal, or that's pretty normal.

Or, you know, that's, that's an old injury that just hasn't quite healed over yet or whatever. If you have an old injury on your horse, they're not even going to let it in pen. Oh my goodness. So you think about what that will do to all of these events and, and, you know, right now, speed events are exempt.

Why is that? Well, because the PRCA was the only one that did a really good job over the last 35 years, getting themselves exempted from a lot of this stuff. They were the only organization that came together and really worked hard to get themselves exempted. And, and say, Hey, we're not part of this.

We don't sore our animals on purpose. And here's [00:30:00] the, here's the question I asked during that, that zoom call on Friday. I said, what if the HPA was designed to stop soaring of horses, purposeful soaring of horses, why are you? And that the only ones that were doing it at that point where the Tennessee walkers in the racking horses, why is this going into now covering every domestic horse in every event?

Why is that happening? And they, they specifically called out the jumping world, but those guys, the USEF is Almost as bad as well. They are. They're, they're, they're bad in a different way than, uh, than, uh, jockey club in the fact that they're actually setting themselves up for problems. I don't know if you saw that or not But they came out with a new rule that basically says that anybody can Karen somebody Just like that [00:31:00] and from a different state and they'll go investigate it.

I mean, what could go wrong, really? What could go wrong there? And anytime that I say the same thing about anytime you bring the federal government into a private industry like this. What could go wrong and the USEF is kind of analogous to the federal government in the English world You know because it's so massive And centralized yeah, and that's the that's the interesting part too Because the USEF only covers about 3 percent of the horses domestic horse in the United States and they're We're allowing them to make rules like that Yeah to where you know, people are actually listening to it and going well, maybe we should do that too.

Oh, be careful what you wish for because this is all going to turn into a giant mess it is and they follow Um, because I was in the english world for a long time And they follow a lot of the [00:32:00] standards of horse care in in europe you know because of the imported horses and they they do a lot of european warm bloods and A lot of international events and all of that And, uh, in Europe, I mean, it's stuff like you get busted for clipping your horse's whiskers because supposedly then they can't feel anything through their whiskers or it hurts them, which is crazy because, first of all, it's helpful to like a Mustang who's grazing through some really tall grass to have an extra layer sensory layer there to make sure he's not going to come across a cactus or something.

But our horses. Generally speaking aren't in that situation, especially not show horses. So they don't necessarily need that extra layer of, uh, of sensory this, but then also it doesn't hurt them to clip their whiskers. It's like clipping your fingernail. You can feel it, but it doesn't hurt. Um, so anyway, but all that to say that that has blown it up.

Just, just whiskers has blown [00:33:00] up. It becomes a huge issue. Yeah. The stupidity of some of the things that, um, are, are becoming issues is that that's a prime example of it. And it's, it's so ridiculous. When you come from a, a background like I do with cowboy and doing, you know, training horses and doing all this stuff.

I mean, the people have bought into the fact that there's no bad horses. There's no, you know, hell, there's if you want to go that far, there's no bad dogs. Why do we put dogs down for biting people? Why do we get rid of dogs that are, you know, you know, their medulla oblongata is screwed up. So they're, they're wanting to bite people, but you know, that it's the same thing with horses.

I mean, I've been around enough, um, horses that have, have wanted to tear your head off. I mean, even Buck Brannaman Buck Brannaman, you see that famous video of [00:34:00] him and that woman with that palomino stud. I mean, you know, people like that, that the, that the general touchy feely people love. You know, Clinton Anderson's the same way.

He's a buddy of mine and he's got, he's, he comes out and says the same kind of stuff, you know, the, there are bad horses that need to go away and, and we can't, they're, it's just, it's just hard. It's a really hard thing to, to get people to understand that you get that some of these horse trainers out there and horse trainers that are trying to make their, their way.

And trying to do things very touchy feely and try to tell everybody there's no bad horses, only bad horse trainers. There's a lot of people that could out think a horse a lot better that are out there doing stuff with horses, but there are definitely a lot of bad horses. Yeah, and the fact that they could theoretically be fixed doesn't mean they're not bad right now, and it also doesn't mean that somebody is [00:35:00] obligated to risk their life to try to fix the horse, and it may not even work.

So yeah, and that they've got to go somewhere. You know, and it's the same thing with Mustangs. I know a lot of people, um, love the Mustangs and say there's, they're just as good as every other horse. Well, some of them might be, you know, to some extent in certain areas, but you've got to, I mean, I I've been around a lot of Mustangs and I've done a lot of Mustang training and it's like, Less than 50 percent of the horses I've been around that are Mustangs have been worth anything.

I mean, good. And you have to sort of filter through all of them to find the good ones. Well, what happens with the rest of them? You know, they just sit in holding because nobody wants to acknowledge the possibility of slaughter as a, um, more humane way of dealing with them than letting them sit for the rest of their lives.

Um, so anyway, but I'm going to ask you a few questions about just. How in the world we can get these messages out, how we can fight [00:36:00] better, what we can do better. Um, so one question I had for you is what are some ways that we as a horse industry shoot ourselves in the foot, uh, and fail to help protect our lifestyle and actually just kind of make things harder for ourselves.

Well, the main, the main thing is. Western justice for what we do. If everybody out there knew what we did and how much we're fighting, they would all be a, I mean, minimum 25 a year member. I mean, that, that's, that's the key we are. If you want to do your life. And you want to go not worry about all this stuff, let us worry about it, because I have the team, we've got the experience.

I'm running up on 20 years of doing this crap now. 

 The way I look at it, and I still look at it, and I'm very positive about it, um, is that if you put ranching, the western horse world, and the rodeo world all together, There's no bigger, [00:37:00] more financially well healed group of people in the United States.

We are the largest recreational entity in the United States by far. And we could be the strongest lobby. We could keep these people out of our hair, but we need everybody behind us. So what do you think is keeping that from happening? Why do we seem like we're in these little subcultures with apathy, apathy, and there's a lot of smart people that run all of these.

You know, are that are involved in all of these organizations? Cause you think about it with that group of people who are one of the most financially well heeled group of people in the United States, there's a lot of very smart people that are involved in the horse industry as owners and, you know, trainers and all kinds, there's a lot of smart people, smart people can be the biggest detriment to their own safety.

A lot of times. Uh, because they believe that they [00:38:00] understand and that they want, they're able to, they're, they're able to get things done or, or protect themselves. And I, I'll give you a really good example. So I deal a lot with water rights issues for, for ranchers. And every. Irrigation district out here in the West. Everybody has, you know, you have water rights that come. You don't just punch a well for the most part. You have to have water rights that come from somewhere and all these irrigation districts we have have. I mean, these are in some very large farming areas.

These irrigation districts, smart people again, running them. Center for Biological Diversity comes in and they say, we're going to sue you out of your water if you don't do a habitat conservation plan for all these endangered species. The Center for Biological Diversity is the most, they're probably [00:39:00] my biggest enemy and my biggest foe on, on all of the ranching issues.

So, but they'll come in and these, these farmers. And these guys that run these irrigation districts think they're really smart and they're going to, they're going to be the 1st ones out with. The 39 lawyers that are sitting over there at Center for Biological Diversity that have done this same thing over and over for the last 20 years.

And they, they have a really good game plan and they know what to watch for. And they, they get hornswoggled every time these, these irrigation districts, these guys that think they're smart. And I go in there and I tell them exactly what I'm telling you right now. This has happened over and over and over.

And they still think, well, we're going to be the first ones out smart. These guys. No, you're not. Let me tell you how you're going to get rid of them. You're going to stand up and you're going to fight. You're going to fight them. You're not going to negotiate with them and win. They're going to win that negotiation because they understand what words mean and they put little [00:40:00] caveats in all of the documents To where they can build on that and bastardize it and, and, you know, do that and get you out of your water.

And they've done it over and over and over, and I've watched it happen. So apathy kills, killing our industry because people don't. Will not stand up and fight. They won't get behind what we do, you know, to, to the degree where we can actually make a difference there. I want to build a, I want to build a, legal fund for ranchers.

Because we're most of the ranchers in the West because we have so much public lands out here and most of the ranchers in the West have gone out of business. I know of probably, I mean, upwards of 100 ranches that have gone out of business in just Nevada alone. Wow. And. And it's because the federal government comes in and puts [00:41:00] pressure on them or cuts their AUMs back and, and does all these things and they don't fight it.

And then they end up going out of business or they end up with a, with a major problem that they can't recover from or to fight it. They don't have the money to do it. And where we end up losing all these people is in the. So there's two legal foundations out here that do a really good job of helping ranchers and helping farmers once their, their cases hit the Supreme Court or even some at the circuit court level, but it's below the circuit court.

So you got, for people who don't understand circuit court, like the ninth circuit, 10th circuit in Colorado, ninth circuit in California. Those take up all of the Western United States as far as the circuits for the most part. And until it gets to that level, those, the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is a great organization, the [00:42:00] Mountain States Legal Foundation, another great organization, they'll take that up and they have money, donor money that comes in, that they can take your case and not charge you for it.

Wow. But it's the lower level, the bottom end that always gets these ranchers, the majority of them, and they can't afford or they mortgage the ranch or they do whatever they can't afford to fight at that level. So they go away. Prior to it, making to the circuit court and the Supreme Court level. Well, and that's the thing is a lot of people aren't realistic. Um, about what can happen. You know, they, they kind of have this naive view of the way the court system works. Like, Oh, justice will prevail. It frequently does not because it is whatever you can get.

Basically money is what wins usually whoever has the most funds for the longest term. Time is the one that wins more often than not. And then also just totally depends on the judge, you know, completely. [00:43:00] So it's, once stuff gets into the courts, often it can go either way. It is not, we don't have any right to be arrogant or overconfident, uh, that, that our side is going to prevail, you know, and, um, Frequently too, because not even our side can explain, articulate why.

We need to be concerned with some of these things. What's what's really funny is that I I've gotten to the point now where there's a lot of people that think I'm a lawyer because I need so many, I know so many facts and, and laws and things like that over the years, but I just tell them I'm a high school educated Marine.

I just like to fight, but the, the, the, one of the things that's the key. To um winning a lot of these battles again for because I did a lot for dairy farms and pork farms We did a lot of stuff like that, especially at protect the harvest [00:44:00] And there's a, there's a clause in almost every state. I think there's only two states that don't have it.

There's a clause. That's basically a right to farm that basically says that if you if you come in and you're a new You move in next to a dairy or you say you move in next to a pork producer's outfit if you've been there for a year or more in business and somebody moves in there and starts or somebody starts complaining about what you're doing And you didn't significantly change what you're doing.

So if you didn't go from a, in other words, if you didn't go from a pork farm to a steel mill or a steel mill to a pork farm or something like that, you didn't change your business. You just expanded your business, made it bigger. There's nothing they can do about it. And there's not one thing they can do about it and that is in your right to farm bill in almost every state and people [00:45:00] don't even know, a lot of attorneys don't even know it's there to be able to, I, I have told attorneys how to fight an issue.

I've called them because somebody calls me and says, Hey, my attorney's having hell with this and we're, we're going to lose this. And I know you've been a part of winning some of these deals. So what can we do? And I tell them about that and they go, Oh, so that ends up being a game changer for them and they can go win their suit or their case.

And those are things that we know how to do that. You know, I mean, I've got, like I said, I've got the greatest agricultural attorney in the, in the, I think that's ever been. That's great. And, and he's actually was the one that. Was tasked with starting the EPA at one time and has seen what the EPA has done and bastardized, you know, and, and totally morphed into something that it's not supposed to be.

So he's, [00:46:00] uh, uh, I mean, when he goes and talks to the Supreme court or anybody else about some of these issues, they go, Oh yeah, I understand now. So, you know, they, they really look at him and go, wow. So, um, you know, there's a, there's a lot of great things that we do. Like we saved one ranch in Paisley, Oregon, central Oregon from a 35 million DOJ lawsuit, they had 35 million coming up against them.

And we saved them from that with the team we put together and the experts we put together. Uh, it was, that was a very, that was a very fun one for me. Cause we were able to go in there and really change things. Um, Oh, that's great. Well, um, just to be respectful of your time. Let's let's wrap up, but I want to ask you Um, what are some ways people can get involved and help if they are not of the apathetic variety?[00:47:00] 

Well, the the best the best thing to do is become a member and stay on top, you know Just look at what we send don't don't just delete our emails because we don't send 100 emails a month we send You know, maybe one a week at the most And I want people need to see what's going on, but they also, we need the support.

We need the members as much as that's why we have a 25 membership. I mean, that's less than a McDonald's breakfast know, for a couple people, but it's, we are, we need those people. We need those numbers. So that when I go to DC, I go, they look at me and go, Oh, crap. Here comes Dave with Western justice.

You know, we can, we need to listen. Is that part of what helps send you to, to a lot of, a lot of times. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, if we don't have, if I relied on memberships to do everything we do, we'd be in trouble. I've got significant donors that help out in different [00:48:00] ways. Also, if you, if you become a member, it's almost like 25 range, you're, you have stake in the game, you know, and you're, you're at least showing that you're a part of it.

You know, and that's, that's a big deal. If I had, you know, the 500, 000 members that we should have, that'd be enough money for us to do. We could change the world with that. We could change this whole scenario. Uh, we have things we're going after with these environmental groups that are going to prove that they're funded by foreign countries to stop our production of our natural resources.

We have, I have the people, some of the greatest investigators in the world. I mean, they probably are really. Um, they're former military. They were tasked by the Pentagon to figure out where the terrorist groups were getting all their money. I mean, these guys are the best and they're the ones that found everything out about the great Pocatello land grab, the documentary we won.[00:49:00] 

An Emmy for, so that's great. Yeah. Where can you find info on that by the way? Well, the only thing that's out right now is the trailer. Cause there's been so many moving parts in that, and there's going to be, if the FBI ever gets their shit together, then there should be about 20 indictments coming fairly soon, so we're trying to, as this thing has evolved, we're trying to make sure when we.

Set it out there. It's the most updated version because what we went into there was not what we found You know, we found something totally different and probably one of the most corrupt Uh scenarios that these guys have ever seen they've seen it in third world countries. They've never seen it the united states Wow.

That's amazing. Okay. Um, well then where's the best place to go for more info on, on all of the websites? Yeah. Our C4 website has most everything on it. The C3 does too. So we have two entities. We have a [00:50:00] C3, which we don't do political work with what we do. We can do all of our legal work and all of our, um, any kind of documentary stuff, that kind of stuff we do through our C3.

And then, uh, C4 is a legislative fund. So that's the one we do all our political work through. So that's, uh, westernjustice. info. And then the, the C3 is, uh, wjustice. org. Um, and I'll put those in the description of, of this episode . So, all right. Well, I sure appreciate your time.

You bet.