South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) in a new book describes shooting a family dog who after a hunting trip, according to a report in The Guardian, which obtained a copy of the book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.”
In the book, Noem, who has been discussed as a possible running mate for former President Donald Trump, describes growing angry with the nearly 14-month-old “Cricket,” a wirehair pointer, during a hunting trip.
Noem shot the dog after taking it on a pheasant hunt.
She writes that she had taken Cricket on the hunt hoping she would learn from older dogs, but that instead the younger dog ruined the hunt by “chasing all those birds and having the time of her life,” per the Guardian.
On the way home, the dog escaped her truck and attacked a local family’s chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another,” Noem wrote.
When Noem tried to grab the dog, she wrote that it whipped around to bite her. Noem said she wrote the family a check for their chickens and helped them dispose of the carcasses “littering the scene of the crime.”
“I hated that dog,” she wrote, adding that Cricket was untrainable, dangerous and worthless as a hunting dog.
“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”
She then led the dog to a gravel pit on her property and shot it, writing that it was “not a pleasant job” but it “had to be done.”
Noem wrote that she also killed a “nasty and mean” male goat that smelled and liked to chase her children. She tried to shoot and kill the goat, but it took two tries to “put him down.”
The Guardian wrote that the story was told as an anecdote to show that Noem believes sometimes difficult tasks must be taken, and that she is not afraid to do them. It wrote that she included the story to show that in life and in politics, Noem was willing to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it simply needs to be done.
Noem also wrote that she realized that a construction crew watched her kill both animals, but the workers got back to work before a school bus dropped off her kids.
When her daughter arrived, Noem writes in the book that she looked around, confused, asking where Cricket was.
“I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here,” Noem wrote.
In a tweet from her personal account, Noem appeared to confirm the story and said there would be more politically incorrect stories in her book.
“We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years. If you want more real, honest, and politically INcorrect stories that’ll have the media gasping, preorder “No Going Back,” she wrote.
The Hill has reached out to Hachette Book Group, the publisher of Noem’s forthcoming book. The Hill has also reached out to Noem’s office for further comment about the book and The Guardian’s report.
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