Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is responding to backlash after revealing in her upcoming memoir that she killed her dog named Cricket and a goat on her ranch 20 years ago. The Guardian reported the incident detailed in Noem’s book “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.”
According to The Guardian’s report, in her book Noem said Cricket was a 14-month-old female wirehair pointer with “an aggressive personality.” Noem was training Cricket for pheasant hunting.
Noem wrote she had taken Cricket out for a pheasant hunt and was hoping to calm down the puppy, but Cricket was “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.”
Noem wrote that on the way home from the hunt, she had stopped to speak with a local family when Cricket escaped the car and attacked the family’s chickens like a “trained assassin.”
According to Noem, when she attempted to stop Cricket from eating the chickens, Cricket whipped around to bite her.
“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote.
Noem described Cricket as “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “untrainable.”
“At that moment, I realized I had to put her down,” she wrote.
Noem wrote that she led Cricket to a gravel pit and shot her.
“It was not a pleasant job but it had to be done,” Noem wrote.
The governor also wrote about putting down a family goat that she described as “nasty and mean.” According to Noem, the goat had a habit of chasing her children and knocking them down.
Noem, who has been floated as a possible pick for former President Donald Trump’s vice president, received pushback from both Republicans and Democrats over the admitted killings.
The Democratic National Committee released a statement in the voice of pets owned by Democrats.
“Our message is plain and simple: If you want elected officials who don’t brag about brutally killing their pets as part of their self-promotional book tour, then listen to our owners — and vote Democrat,” the statement said.
“She can’t be VP now. You can’t shoot your dog and then be VP,” Trump supporter Laura Loomer posted on X.
Noem took to X to defend herself.
“I can understand why some people are upset about a 20-year-old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch,” Noem said. “The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did. Whether running the ranch or in politics, I have never passed on my responsibilities to anyone else to handle. Even if it’s hard and painful. I followed the law and was being a responsible parent, dog owner and neighbor.”
