Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota considered one of Donald Trump’s possible deputies in the next elections, has been overwhelmed by controversy and criticism, even from the right, after it emerged that in the book she is about to publish she talks about personally killing his 14-month-old dog for being “unruly”.
“I hated that dog, he couldn’t be trainedit was dangerous, he was worth nothing as a hunting dogand at that moment I realized that I had to bring it down”, wrote the 52-year-old ultra-Trumpian governor, who became famous during Covid for refusing to sign the obligation to wear masks, in the book ‘No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward’, of which the Guardian obtained a preview.
The fault of Cricket, the German pointer just over a year old that she shot down and then threw into a gravel pit, was that of ruining a pheasant hunt and killing the neighbor’s chickens. If Noem’s intention was to prove that she was tough and determined, that is likely to be the case a boomerang in America where the love of pets is a sort of religion. It is no coincidence that Biden’s campaign posted photos of the president with the German shepherd Commander – the protagonist of a long series of attacks on Secret Service agents that led to his removal from the White House, certainly not to killing him – and Kamala Harris who cuddles a dog.
Criticisms are also coming from the right. “I love dogs and I’m really horrified by what Noem wrote, I never wanted to read it, at 14 months a dog is a puppy and can be trainedmuch of the bad behavior of dogs depends on the bad training of humans”, said Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Trump White House staffer, now critic of the former president, underlining that “dogs are a gift from God, anyone in in an unnecessary way, it hurts an animal because it is a nuisance and should be treated.”
“When I saw the tweets about Noem murdering her puppy, I thought, ‘Hell, one of the other VP candidates found dirty stuff on her,’ but then I saw that she wrote it herself. I know why anyone would brag about something like that unless they’re sick,” echoed Sarah Matthews, another former Trump White House critic who is now a critic of the tycoon.
The fact is that in the book Noem – who took care of the family ranch in South Dakota before starting her political career in 2006 – not only describes how she shot her dog, but also how she chose to kill a goat, always because it is too agitated, by shooting it three times with a rifle. And, faced with the outcry and controversy caused by her revelations, she doesn’t seem at all willing to take a step back, just as the title of the book out next month says.
“We love animals, but decisions have to be made every day on a farm,” he wrote in X, responding to the Guardian’s revelations. “It wasn’t a pleasant job, but it had to be done, and then I realized that another unpleasant job had to be done,” she added, referring to to killing first the puppy and then the goat, which she defined as “bad”.
A defense destined not to calm the controversy, if a group of Democratic governors responded, again on social media, to their Republican colleague by posting photos of their “pets” urging other users to do the same. “Post a photo of your dog that doesn’t involve shooting it and throwing it in a quarry,” wrote Minnesota governor Tim Walz, followed by colleagues in Michigan, New Jersey.
The Democratic Committee also commented on the story, giving the floor to their own pets: “We had heard from our masters how extremist and dangerous Donald Trump and his extremist Maga allies could be, but nothing prepared us for the disturbing and horrible passage that Kristi Noem chose to put in her book.”
