Posted on 04/26/2024 9:28:54 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
....In 2024 Kristi Noem, a strong contender to be named running mate to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has managed to go one further – by admitting killing a dog of her own.
“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant....By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”.
Noem describes calling Cricket, then using an electronic collar to attempt to bring her under control. Nothing worked. Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another”.
Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like “a trained assassin”.
When Noem finally grabbed Cricket, she says, the dog “whipped around to bite me”. Then, as the chickens’ owner wept, Noem repeatedly apologised, wrote the shocked family a check “for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime”.
Through it all, Noem says, Cricket was “the picture of pure joy”.
“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable”, “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.
“At that moment,” Noem says, “I realised I had to put her down.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Its different to show aggression to a child, but a hunting dog is always going to go after birds ( chickens). A 14 month dog could have been given up to a rescue, with the caveat that the dog eats chickens. You could have had a suburban homeowner (who hunts )adopt the dog and train it. A 14 month pure bred puppy would be adopted quickly. If you look at rescues online, they will state things like “ dog cannot get along with cats”, or “ dog cannot be rehomed with other dogs in the house”. This dog could have done fine by being placed with a hunter who knows how to train in a more suburban neighborhood. Why in the world would a person who is seeking higher office admit she killed a puppy? We don’t need stupid people running this country. We are already suffering enough.
The reactions to this piece offer a good view as to why leftists think the way they do: minds filled with idiotic fantasies about how life works and self-righteous sentimentality masquerading as moral insight.
Wow, amazingly similar experiences. Just to add in, we tried everything. Training collar, calming suppliments, Prozac, many multiple strategies... everything. She was the sweetest dog in her moments, but sadly, incorrigible. We strenuously avoided what we knew had to be done. Still bothers me. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I have always chaffed at those bumper stickers proclaiming, “Dog mom”, or “Dog grandma” or some such thing.
No, a hunting dog will not always go after chickens.
On our remote family farm a dog that went after chickens would not be tolerated.
Always had at least three hounds that roamed free.
Two redbones and a huge mixed hound (everyone’s favorite, got hit by a train when he had a varmint trapped under the tracks).
The 3 foxhounds were kept penned up or they would run themselves to exhaustion.
None of them killed chickens or ate eggs.
Yes, there are rescues these days, which are wonderful options if the dog is not human aggressive.
I could care less about her putting down an animal. Have had to do it many times myself. I just do not think she would make a great President.
Romney and Noem two peas in a pod. Although Romney didn’t kill the family dog at least.
She wrote the damn book. Those are her words. Clearly not ready for prime time.
It’s easy to run a state with no people.
The number of people I’ve read on Twitter — people who normally have an extraordinary amount of good sense — who have begun treating Kristi Noem akin to an animal torturer for putting down a dog that killed her neighbor’s chickens is downright depressing.
Here are some choice excerpts:
“The evolutionary history of humans and dogs is so significant, this is evidence of a substantial moral defect”
“Lock her up.”
“imagine including a story about killing a puppy ... the barbarity ... the debasement of the moral sense”
“And apparently with a view to thinking that you would make you seem tough and ruthless rather than cruel bordering on masochistic with other unresolved emotional issues.”
“A person who would kill their own dog is likely capable of other similar grave evils. A very sick and demented individual who should be a pariah, if she is not already.”
“Fair bit of evidence around animal cruelty, brutality and escalating.”
“Animal cruelty is rarely if ever a one off - also a common past for domestic violence ... one of those obvious red flags that people claim “oh we never saw any signs””
“Also some of the worst serial killers started abusing animals first before they started killing people.”
“She can kiss her political future goodbye. No reason that puppy couldn’t have been rehomed. Everytime I have to put any of my animals down (always health or age related) it rips my heart out.”
“This is just demented. Something is not right with a person who would do this.”
“The money shot is the high fiving herself for the execution.”
“She should have her children removed.”
“She does it and BRAGS about it is awful goes to how bad of a person and politician she is. Same vibe as leftists who “shout your abortion”.”
“Even if, as she alleges, the dog was difficult to deal with, bit people etc., you don’t take a pet to a gravel pit and pump it full of lead. If there’s no other option, a minimally humane person involves a vet and treats the dog with a minimum of respect. She stands condemned.”
“Noem is a textbook sociopath: impulsive, and with no conscience. No wonder Trump likes her.”
“It is dumb but almost sort of bragging.... all very sick”
People are so removed from rural/farm life that they have no idea what they’re talking about.
A 14-month old wirehaired pointer is about fully grown; it is not a “puppy” by any stretch of the imagination. And in the countryside, a chicken-killing dog is also a liability.
The media people releasing these excerpts from a book that the public can’t buy until May the 7th know exactly what they’re doing by framing it as her ‘shooting a puppy’; the number of people who’ve begun treating Noem as though she’s an animal torturer one step away from being a serial killer is proof enough that they did their job.
And for those chiding her for including this story in her book: isn’t that the point of a memoir? To show the good, the bad, and the ugly? Must everything be viewed purely through the lens of political advantage?
Kristi Noem commits career suicide recounting her Glory Days shooting a 14 month old bird dog she didn't care enough about to train properly and everyone else here has to chime in with their own great dog killing story.
The reality is Noem is revealing herself to be just more of a garbage human being over time
You're taking the media's framing of the event for granted.
Not even close... But you keep being special...
You are entitled to your idiotic opinion...
Vice presidency, heck no.
She’s going to get into the ring with Joni Ernst.
Like I said earlier... I like her as Gov of my neighboring State.
Met her last year at Sturgis. There is a local Christian ministry that has a free pancake breakfast at the Buffalo Chip during the rally.
She came across as genuine and a little embarrassed at the positive reaction from a bunch of us biker types.
Read her “Not my first rodeo”... Not completely in-line with my conservative libertarian values... but she is pro-Constitution, FOR limited government, and is pro-capitalism... especially for entrepreneurs.
The Tribes out there are still kind of on the fence about her... but are not as openly hostile as they have been to others... I have a friend I’ll be swinging in to see when I head back out that way in August. The opinion comes from her... She claims direct descent from the Blackfoot tribes.
Er... my friend claims direct descent... Not Noem... Just to clarify...
The dog was ruined. He had tasted the thrill of killing. Once a dog gets that rush, he’s a killing machine.
Putting it down is all you can do.
It sounds like you went the extra mile trying to resolve the problem. Our was strictly a territorial issue. The "nemesis" and "prohibited" pups were best friends anywhere else. It was a heart-wrenching decision.
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