Politicians and dog experts vilify South Dakota governor after she writes about killing her dog

Politicians and dog experts are criticizing South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem after she wrote in a new book about killing a rambunctious puppy. The story — and the vilification she received on social media — has some wondering whether she’s still a viable potential running mate for presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Experts who work with hunting dogs like Noem’s said she should have trained — not killed — the pup, or found other options if the dog was out of control.

Noem has tried to reframe the story from two decades ago as an example of her willingness to make tough decisions. She wrote on social media that the 14-month-old wirehaired pointer named Cricket had shown aggressive behavior by biting.

“As I explained in the book, it wasn’t easy,” she said on X. “But often the easy way isn’t the right way.”

Still, Democrats and even some conservatives have been critical.

NatakuNox,
@NatakuNox@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    snooggums,
    @snooggums@midwest.social avatar

    South Dakota isn’t in the rural south…

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    So you’re saying she made up the story and then put it in her own book? For what reason?

    Dagwood222,

    She wrote about it herself. Even if it never happened, it shows what she thinks ‘tough’ means.

    TotalFat,

    Exactly! Trump-Noem would mean leadership that murders its opponents and anyone who doesn’t fit in with their vision of a nation.

    Nachorella, (edited )

    Millions of animals are killed less humanely every day for food. Why are people so worked up about this one?

    edit: I guess it’s only ok to support the inhumane murder of animals if you don’t know them and want to eat them. I understand now.

    queermunist,
    @queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

    You’d have a point if she was raising dogs for slaughter, but there’s an extra layer of sociopathy to kill a nonhuman member of your own family.

    wjrii,

    What I’ve seen poking around other places is that it would be viewed as, if nothing else, “a waste of an animal.” She went straight from “training is going poorly” to “this thing, which by the way my children have named and expect to live another decade or more, has to die, now, by my hand, in sight of people who had no choice but to be there, and regardless of whatever utility the dog still has to my household or the world.” Throw in the emotional bond that so readily forms between people and companion animals, even “working” ones, and it’s doubly disturbing.

    There are legitimate moral arguments about eating meat, and if that’s acceptable then about how the animals are treated while alive (full disclosure, I eat meat), but take your wins where you can get them: everybody agrees Kristi Noem is fucked up. Even dog-hating Trump, who has a serious “suburban mom” problem to mitigate, will probably have to reluctantly move on.

    Cheems,
    @Cheems@lemmy.world avatar

    Your edit makes you sound like a pompous buffoon

    Nachorella,

    I am a pompous buffoon, so that checks out.

    psvrh,
    @psvrh@lemmy.ca avatar

    It’s a man-bites-dog story, both figuratively and literally.

    People being cruel to animals as part of the food chain? It’s a day that ends in “y”

    A potential vice president of the United States killed a dog because she didn’t like it? That’s newsworthy.

    It might focus attention on animal cruelty.

    Side note: Joe Biden very clearly likes his dogs, and treats them perhaps a little too well. Donald Trump famously doesn’t have any pets, and uses euphemisms like “…like a dog” to invoke cruelty. Make of that what you will.

    queermunist,
    @queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

    I like Joe Biden’s dogs and wish they’d bite more secret service members.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    I’d say he treats them way too well considering it took him quite some time to choose between keeping his dogs in the White House and not endangering the people whose job it is to save his life. I’m sure his dogs are very sweet and loyal to him. I have a dog who is very sweet and loyal to me and my family… but I wouldn’t let her wander around the White House if I was in charge because I know she’d do exactly what they did. Sucks for him and for them that he has to leave them in his non-presidential home, but it was just a bad idea to keep them with him.

    But I’d still put someone who loves dogs and/or cats over someone who hates both.

    JoeBigelow,
    @JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca avatar

    I don’t disagree, but do love the mental image of Secret Service members trying to fend off a German shepherd without hurting it because it’s the president’s dog, walking around on eggshells in case they accidentally piss it off.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    I have to admit, that’s pretty funny.

    toomanypancakes, (edited )
    @toomanypancakes@lemmy.world avatar

    I don’t know if that’s the right outlook. People should be worked up about this, because killing a member of your family is seriously fucked up. They just also should be worked up about all the other animals routinely murdered daily, because that’s seriously fucked up.

    Vespair,

    So when politicians support tons of policies that harm, starve, and needlessly incarcerate millions of living American humans, no big deal, but if one fucking dog gets harmed suddenly we give a shit.

    Cool. Our empathy for our fellow man definitely isn’t broken at all.

    Sidyctism,

    The point isnt human vs dog, its direct vs indirect action. People are a lot more disgusted by murderers than the person that put out the hit.

    zaph,

    People kinda suck. I’ve never met a dog I didn’t like. (this is slight sarcasm)

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    That’s how it is. Like it or not, people care a hell of a lot more when a dog dies in a movie than when a person dies.

    PsychedSy,

    Yeah, but I know none of those people would be my friend while the dog definitely would.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    That’s exactly why even a lot of Republicans are disgusted by her. “Fuck people, but my dogs will always love me.”

    PsychedSy,

    To be fair, I said “fuck me, I’m a piece of shit but dogs just know I’m the best at scritches”.

    Working with a lot of farm/country/redneck people was a culture shock to me. Some of them treat hunting dogs like farm equipment. I have a 16yo dog that’s never been outside unattended for longer than a shower, and that was when he had a privacy fence and bigger dogs to chill with. It took a bit of time for me to have respect for some of them.

    People are fucky.

    dustyData,

    Inability to be empathetic and kind to animals is a psychopathic trait. People who don’t want to and wouldn’t hurt humans, wouldn’t hurt animals either. But those who want to hurt humans will usually resort to hurting animals because they can get away with it more easily. (especial treatment for small mammals and pets as they are the emotionally closest to us)

    iiGxC,

    Carnists: nervous glance

    IrateAnteater,

    It’s not hard to understand at all. There’s a couple things at work here: first, humans are terrible at connecting emotionally to long term consequences. That’s why a disaster that kills 100 people will always elicit a stronger reaction than a policy that will kill millions.

    Another thing happening is how humans subconsciously justify things to themselves. An adult could have “deserved” whatever happened, but there’s no way a puppy did.

    I think it’s dogs tickling the same parts of our brains as kids, which would go towards explaining the similar reactions.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    I think there’s also the idea that many people have that dogs are loyal and loving no matter what and don’t judge you, unlike all of those awful people out there who obviously deserve what’s coming to them.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    I don’t think you need to be a dog expert. Just have the ability to feel the tiniest amount empathy. This goes way too far for even a lot of Republicans.

    disguy_ovahea,

    What’s worse, is the story itself. She took the dog on a pheasant hunt for the day, cheering it on while it chased the pheasants and went for the kills. On the way home, she stopped at a friend’s house where the dog attacked their chickens. She then led the dog to a gravel pit and shot it in the head.

    It thought it was being a good dog, doing exactly what she was training it to do. She addressed her mistake with murder.

    KAYDUBELL,

    Goddamn, every time I get more info on this story it just gets worse. I can’t imagine killing an animal that wasn’t a danger or deserved a merciful death.

    Burn_The_Right,

    Empathy is not a conservative trait.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    True, but even plenty of conservatives have enough empathy about their own pets to see this is wrong. And they’ve been saying so.

    Carvex,

    These nut jobs are so disconnected from reality, thinking telling people a story about killing your own innocent dog will make you look tough.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    That wasn’t exactly why, according to the article. This was, apparently, the shittiest attempt at damage control I’ve ever seen.

    But South Dakota Democratic Senate Minority Leader Reynold Nesiba considered the disclosure more calculated than stupid. He said the story has circulated for years among lawmakers that Noem killed a dog in a “fit of anger” and that there were witnesses. He speculated that it was coming out now because Noem is being vetted as a candidate for vice president.

    “She knew that this was a political vulnerability, and she needed to put it out there, before it came up in some other venue,” he said. “Why else would she write about it?”

    She also writes about shooting a goat the family owned because it was mean to her kids.

    She has basically no chance of being Trump’s VP now, but this is the level of quality he’s looking for in a candidate.

    tburkhol,

    Time to bring Sarah Palin out of retirement.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    I don’t know if Trump wants her watching Russia from her house while he has secret meetings with Putin.

    NOT_RICK,
    @NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

    I prefer an actual quote from Palin to this apocryphal one. When Katie Couric asked her what newspapers she read to keep informed Palin said “All of them”

    ImADifferentBird,
    @ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    I, too, prefer an actual quote.

    “[O]ur next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of,” said Palin, trying to explain how her state’s proximity to Russia adds to her foreign policy experience.

    “As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to our state,” she added.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    I mean she kind of said what Tina Fey parodied her saying, which was:

    “When you’re talking about what’s going on at the border—the non-existent border,” Palin said, “that reminds me how important it is, that all Alaskans realize it. Now Alaska is strategically located on the globe—as you know—you don’t laugh about the fact that you can see Russia from Alaska, and Canada is right there on our other side.”

    You can see one Russian island sometimes from one island in Alaska.

    jaybone,

    Bush’s VP shot a person in the face. So…

    NovaPrime,
    @NovaPrime@lemmy.ml avatar

    She basically has no chance of being Trump’s VP now…

    Disagreed. This cements her as the front runner. She’s had the cosmetic surgery to give her that far-right plastic bimbo look, she’s cruel to animals and brags about it (Trump famously hates animals and pets), she’s a woman and someone who wont upstage him in the spotlight, she kisses his ass religiously, and she’s generating controversy to take away heat from whatever insane shit he’s doing this week. She’s the lock in. You think Trump gives a shit about traditional “electability?” It’s been clear since he started campaigning the second time that any and all guard rails that may have been there the first time around are gone. His entire platform is just cult of personality. There is no policy. He doesn’t care which traditional voter block she can attract/rebuff. She’ll be there to look pretty, back up everything he says, and not upstage him. Nothing else matters for him.

    wjrii,

    Nah, while he’ll be sympathetic, Trump has a crude grasp of the notion that his base likes dogs, same as his crude grasp of the notion that they like the Bible. He’ll move down the list and give her a political appointment if he wins.

    Burn_The_Right,

    His base likes dogs and also likes killing dogs.

    I grew up in the south. I have heard countless stories about killlng dogs who don’t perform well on a hunt. This is how conservatives brag about how little empathy they have, because they see empathy as weakness. They use these stories to show that they are happy to kill anything for any reason. This kind of story is so common here that happily killing animals seems fundamental to being a conservative.

    I assure you, his base is in no way offended by her story of killing a puppy.

    HootinNHollerin, (edited )

    That article definitely reads like written by a republiQan

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