SOUTH Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has made the bizarre admission she killed her dog after a hunting trip.
Noem, who could be Donald Trump’s pick for vice president, described her ill-fated dog as “the picture of joy” in her book No Going Back.
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The 52-year-old Republican, who has been serving in political offices since 2007, is a New York Times bestselling author who penned Not My First Rodeo: Lessons from the Heartland, in 2022.
Her latest book, No Going Back, is set to come out next month, and will give an inside look at the “dysfunction” of Washington DC, according to the description.
In the book, Noem tells an anecdote about her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer Cricket to show how she won’t stray from a challenge, according to The Guardian who saw the upcoming book.
Noem had plenty of problems with the puppy’s “aggressive personality,” so she decided one day she wanted to take her on a hunting trip so she could learn from the older dogs.
However, instead of making a dramatic transition to an esteemed bird hound, Cricket ruined the hunt by “chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.”
“I hated that dog,” she admitted in the book.
Despite her best efforts to break Cricket’s spirit through discipline and shock collars, Noem said the puppy had a mind of her own.
The horror situation came to a head when Cricket escaped Noem’s truck to attack a nearby family’s chickens, and grabbed “one chicken at a time” to crunch them to death “with one bite.”
Noem tried to stop the crazed pet, but she whipped her head around and tried to bite the governor.
The massacre was so gnarly it brought the chickens’ owners to tears, leading Noem to write the family a check and help “them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime.”
“At that moment, I realized I had to put her down,” she wrote.
After leaving the home, Noem said she got her gun and led doomed Cricket to a gravel pit.
“It was not a pleasant job, but it had to be done,” she said.
And this wasn’t the end of Noem’s stories of messy farm work.
Later in the book, she describes the story of how she had to kill a “nasty and mean” male goat.
Because the animal hadn’t been castrated, she said he liked to “chase” her children and described him as smelling “disgusting, musky, rancid.”
Noem tried to kill the goat the same way Cricket was put down, but this slaughter wasn’t as easy.
She brought him down to the same gravel pit on her farm and shot him once with her shotgun, but he survived the blow.
Noem then had to race to get another shell so she could finally put an end to his suffering.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Noem seemed to confirm that the story was true and warned of more similarly dark anecdotes in the book.
“We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” she wrote.
“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 said.
Animal rights groups have been quick to condemn Noem’s actions.
Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, told The U.S. Sun: “There’s no rational and plausible excuse for Noem shooting a juvenile dog for normal puppy-like behavior.
“If she is unable to handle an animal, ask a family member or a neighbor to help. If training and socializing the dog doesn’t work, then give the dog to a more caring family or to a shelter for adoption.
“Raising and caring for a dog takes patience and kindness. Tens of millions of Americans who know and love dogs have to wonder about a person who expresses hatred for a young female dog and kills her.”
TRUMP’S PICK?
Noem made history in 2018 when she was elected as the first female governor of South Dakota after securing an endorsement by Trump.
Raised on a ranch in Hamlin County, Noem is a former beauty pageant winner, having been crowned South Dakota Snow Queen the year she graduated high school in 1990.
Her father was killed in a farm machinery accident in 1994, the same year her daughter Noem was born.
In 2006, she won a seat in the South Dakota House of Representatives, securing reelection in 2008.
She was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2010 and was reelected in 2012, 2014, and 2016.
In 2018, she was elected as South Dakota governor in a narrow race by 51 to 46.7 percent.
During her tenure, she made history for refusing to issue a statewide mask mandate during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Recently, she’s made headlines for being considered as Trump’s pick for vice president.
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