Governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem is defending her decision to put down a dog that she deemed dangerous and untrainable after receiving backlash for her own version of events.
Noem talks about putting down a 14-month-old wirehair pointer that attacked neighbors’ hens and spoilt a pheasant hunt in her upcoming book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.
This week, the passage was made public after The Guardian obtained an advance copy of the book and published the quote. The conservative politician, who is often floated as the presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, was met with criticism.
Noem defended the incident on Friday as the outcry grew, saying it was essential.
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,… pic.twitter.com/bKhpUkchHV
— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) April 26, 2024
“We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm” Noem, 52, stated Friday in a post on X . “Sadly, we just had to put down three horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”
Noem writes, “I realized I had to put her down,” noting that the animal had attacked and killed several of her neighbor’s chicks and had almost bitten her when she had attempted to stop it.
According to her narrative, she shot Cricket the dog after leading it to a gravel pit on her family’s South Dakota farm. In the book, she also claims to have slaughtered a wild goat that was “nasty and mean,” according to NBC News.
Read Also: Bankroll Freddie, Rapper From Arkansas Faces Conviction in 2022 Drug, Gun Bust
Some in the political community took issue with the passage, among them Meghan McCain, the daughter of former Arizona senator John McCain and Republican presidential contender in 2008.
McCain stated in a post on X that “you can recover from a lot of things in politics, change the narrative, etc., but not from killing a dog.”
The Democratic National Committee released a hilarious yet pointed statement claiming to be from the “dogs of the DNC, aka the Dogmocratic Party.”
“As DNC’s canine companions, we’ve heard a lot from our owners about just how extreme and dangerous Donald Trump and his far-right MAGA allies are — but nothing could prepare us for the truly disturbing and horrifying passages Kristi Noem willingly chose to put in her new book,” as per the statement.