Posted on 04/27/2024 10:09:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I have been an admirer of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem ever since she first showed up on my radar after her election in 2019. She has established a solid record as a conservative with ambitious policy goals that have served her state very well and she's an excellent communicator. She's been well up on my list of potential Trump veepstakes picks because she brings a lot to the table. But all of that came crashing down for me yesterday evening when The Guardian published a review of her upcoming book, "No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward." It sounds as if most of the book is a fairly typical political analysis of the dangers of rampant progressivism and the need to restore traditional American values. But it also contains one highly disturbing episode from her life when she killed one of her own dogs, a German wirehaired pointer named Cricket who was only 14 months old. Her description of the incident is rather horrifying and I fear it speaks poorly of her character. (Warning: Potentially disturbing content ahead.)
In 2012, as the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney was pilloried for tying a dog, Seamus, to the roof of the family car for a cross-country trip.
But 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.
What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season.
Noem describes attempting to train Cricket to hunt pheasant and the dog's failure to adapt to typical hunting procedures. Rather than locating game and "pointing" (hence the breed name) at birds so the hunter can take them, Cricket would "go out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”. It sounds as if Cricket wasn't well-suited to be a hunting dog, but was certainly very happy. Noem even described Cricket as "the picture of pure joy."
Despite all of that, she took the dog out to a gravel pit and shot her with a rifle. She later returned and did the same to a goat. She reports that the uncastrated goat was "nasty and mean." Having worked summer jobs on family farms growing up, I can assure you that uncastrated male goats kept for breeding are aggressive and territorial. It's just their nature.
In a way, I suppose I can understand why Noem would choose to share this story. She's trying to make the point that she is "willing to do anything, difficult, messy, and ugly if it simply needs to be done." That can be true at times in politics to be sure, but as a leader, character also counts for a lot. As I've written here before, my wife and I first met volunteering at an animal shelter. Dogs mean a lot to us and we've had many over the decades we've been together. If you have a dog that you're raising for hunting and it doesn't work out, you can find a new home for the dog, particularly when it is so young and "the picture of pure joy."
Even if you can't manage to find a new home yourself, you could take the dog to a shelter. If all else fails, you might feel you have no other choice, but you should euthanize the dog humanely. We've had to take too many of our dogs to be put to sleep but they were all suffering from extreme old age and/or painful, untreatable diseases. (We probably could have paid off our house five years earlier with all the money we've spent on veterinary bills.) If the Noem family was operating a farm, they obviously knew and had access to a veterinarian. It's a requirement for such an operation. You don't just drag the dog to a gravel pit and shoot it.
In the book, Noem writes, “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here.” The Guardian correctly describes that passage as possibly being "the greatest understatement of election year." I agree. I wish I hadn't learned this about her.
To be clear, this doesn't take away from Noem's commendable performance as the Governor of South Dakota. And if Donald Trump does wind up picking her to be his running mate, I won't hold it against him or fail to vote for him. (We vote for presidents, not vice presidents.) But if she were to move forward and run for national office on her own, I would be forced to find a third-party candidate to vote for. As I said above, character is also important in leaders. I could not, in good conscience, vote for Kristi Noem. That's how important this is to me.
A dog whose turned feral and kill farm animals can bring hatred. Noem did the logical right thing.
Oh good grief! You read someone’s opinion from a blog article, probably not even the entire article - an opinion that’s demonstratively slanted and, as others have pointed out, has pertinent, mitigating information omitted and *snap fingers* you go off in your vesion of “This person is dead to me.”
I grew up in a rural area, never had to shoot an animal myself, but sometimes reality bites and you have to do it.
She killed it out of hate.
______________________________________
While she hated the dog, she killed it out of kindness.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, loves his dog. You know, the one that’s bitten Secret Service Agents 24 times.
So tell me who is it that has “textbook sociopathic behavior”?
She had to have some Indian blood, as seen from the high cheekbones.
Btw, your screen name is sounding rather bogus.
Liberals quite easily sieze on a random scenario, possibly one in error - as this case may be - we don’t know what actually happened, and go berzerk over it.
A porcupine got in my fenced property one day. Hit my two dogs and hid out under a utility trailer.
Got a 22 and fired off 4 shots killing it. One of the shots hit my trailer tire. Killing it too. Damn!
Found out that non trained people should not attempt to remove quills themselves, so dogs went to the vet and are fine now.
Yep. She ended her political career with that. It was totally unnecessary too. She could have tried a dog trainer. Hell, she could have dropped the dog off at the pound. There was no need to shoot a 14th old puppy.
I agree with others on this thread about not writing about killing a dog and she should kept this story to herself. It did her no good.
I am not saying that she should not have killed it. I cannot say if she should have killed it or not.
Of course the dog needed to be put down. But you do it out of necessity, not hate. It’s her complete lack of regret at having to do it that I have issues with.
Wow. So much disinformation you posted. I’d like to correct the false statements you made, but I don’t have all night.
Go back and read the replies on this thread and others that give the facts.
“ She lost me when she vetoed that bill that would have kept trannies out of girl’s sports.”
Yes.
“Multiple sources”
Yeah, we’ve heard this song and dance before about Russian Hookers.
The weak of heart would have you pass on the aanimal for someone else to deal with.
Ben Carson will be Trump’s VP pick and has been all along really
As I’ve said before she is the 2024 version of Sarah Palin. Hopefully Trump is smart enough to learn from McCains mistake. It is easier now that she has self immolated. This story will play about twice as poorly as the Mitt Romney dog story.
Trump already has the rural vote what he needs is the swing vote. This will be a minus in that department.
That’s life on a ranch.
14 month-old dog is not a “puppy.”
You’re an idiot. I had a dog years ago that ate a small bird. He would never harm a person, unless they tried to harm one of the family. He was a total sweetheart. Just because people find this disgusting doesn’t mean they’re a “PETA” loon. I think dogs are, on average, FAR more noble creatures than humans. Anyone that does something like this, and thinks it makes her seem like a leader, is a POS. Trump needs to pick a man, and skip the backward notion of women in high office. They try to hard to seem strong enough, and fail to realize that leadership and strength require thought as well as action.
Regardless of the specific details she is now unelectable.
The dog worship on our culture is way out of control.
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