South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a potential running mate for former President Donald Trump, is facing backlash from prominent figures within the MAGA movement after reports emerged of her shooting her ‘untrainable’ dog.
The excerpt from Noem’s book, published by a British newspaper, recounts the incident where the governor shot Cricket, a dog she described as having an ‘aggressive personality.’ The account sparked outrage among animal lovers and led to criticism from far-right activists, who denounced her actions as heartless and unjustified.
In the book excerpt, Noem writes that she brought Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs to help it learn how to behave. However, on the hunt, Cricket went ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life,’ the governor wrote, who added that she used an electronic collar to attempt to bring Cricket under control, which didn’t work.
On the way home, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked a family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.’ This made the chickens’ owner cry and Noem paid them while also helping clean the mess the dog had made. She added that when she grabbed Cricket, the dog ‘whipped around to bite me.’
‘At that moment,’ Noem wrote, ‘I realized I had to put her down.’
‘It was not a pleasant job, but it had to be done,’ she wrote, adding that she shot Cricket after leading it to a gravel pit. The governor also wrote that she ‘hated that dog,’ describing it as ‘untrainable’ and ‘dangerous to anyone she came in contact with.’
The incident has sparked outrage among animal lovers and led to criticism from far-right activists, who denounced her actions as heartless and unjustified. Many have questioned why Noem did not seek alternative options, such as rehoming the dog or seeking professional training, before resorting to euthanasia.
Noem has not yet publicly commented on the backlash, but she is expected to address the issue in the coming days. It remains to be seen how this controversy will impact her political future and her potential role as Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
