South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) is facing a firestorm of criticism for boasting in her new book that she shot and killed her family's 14-month old puppy because it was “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.
On Friday, the Guardian reported the incident that Noem recalled in her book "No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward," published as her name is being bandied about as a possible Donald Trump 2024 running mate.
In the book, the Republican lawmaker wrote about trying to train the dog, Cricket, to hunt with other dogs. Instead, the puppy went “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life."
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She added, a tale of it attacking a neighbor's chicken while "the picture of pure joy," then recalled, “[She] whipped around to bite me."
“At that moment, I realized I had to put her down,” she wrote, before describing how she did it in a gravel pit
Adding insult to injury, she claimed, "I hated that dog.”
The Guardian report led Lincoln Project founder and former GOP campaign consultant Rick Wilson, an avid hunter, to go nuclear on Noem.
"Kristi Noem is trash. Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I've killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent. She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog.
"Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn't kill her. She's sleeping on the couch," he wrote before adding, "You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel...but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point."
Then came the deluge of outrage and condemnation of the South Dakota Republican.
X commenter Jerry Lenhart offered, "That is why she is such a good fit for a party that has become complete trash."
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Political commentator Bill Kristol saw ulterior motives about the revelation and pointed out, "Knowing Donald Trump fears and hates dogs, Kristi Noem revs up her VP campaign by writing about killing her own dog Cricket, a 14 months old wirehair pointer."
"Ranch life means sometimes you have to do some really unpleasant things. It does not mean you have to handle them the way Noem did, let alone boast about it," X commenter Jody Dean observed.
Another commenter pointed to Noem's lack of accomplishments and noted, "Kristi Noem doesn't work either. Nobody has put her down."
Political commentator Grant Stern wrote, "Move over Dr. Oz, the Republican Party has a new puppy murderer and this time we didn’t find out because she got sanctioned by the federal government for it. Kristi Noem thinks her psychopath’s story will attract another, greater maniac to her side."
"I didn't like Kristi Noem before I knew she was a dog killer, which is one of the worst things I can imagine someone doing. I'm a dog lover and I know some will see it differently, but I am boiling with disgust," wrote Leslie007.