South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who has been considered a potential running mate of presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump – on Sunday addressed the recent attention to his new book in which he writes about killing a rebellious dog and a goat.
The Guardian obtained a copy of Noem's soon-to-be-published book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong with Politics and How We Move American Forward.” Noem is scheduled to be interviewed on “Face the Nation” next week about her upcoming book, which will be released on May 7.
In it, he tells the story of the unfortunate Cricket, a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer who was being trained to hunt pheasants.
Jack Dura / AP
She writes, according to The Guardian, that the tale was included to show her willingness to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it has to be done. Backlash was swift against the Republican governor, and he took to social media on Sunday to address the issue.
“I can understand why some people are upset about a 20-year history of Cricket, one of the working dogs on our ranch, in my next book: No Going Back,” she. wrote in a post on X, the platform formally known as Twitter. “The book is full of many honest stories from my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions and lessons learned.”
In his book, Noem writes that he took Cricket on a hunting trip with big dogs in hopes of calming the wild pup down. Instead, Cricket chased the pheasants while “having a good time”.
On the way home from the hunting trip, Noem writes that she stopped to talk to a family. Cricket got out of Noem's truck and attacked and killed some of the family's chickens, then bit the governor.
On Sunday, he defended his decision to kill the dog, saying “South Dakota law states that dogs that attack and kill livestock can be put down.”
“Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior towards people by biting them, I decided what I did,” Noem wrote. “Whether running the ranch or in politics, I've never passed my responsibilities on to anyone to handle. Even if it's hard and painful. I followed the law and was a responsible parent, dog owner and neighbor.”
In the book, Noem also writes that her family also had a “nasty and mean” male goat that smelled bad and liked to chase her children. She decided to go ahead and kill the goat too. He writes that the goat survived the first shot, so he returned to the truck, grabbed another shell, and then shot it again, killing it.
The snippets drew immediate criticism on social media platforms, where many posted photos of their own pets. President Joe Biden's re-election campaign broke the story on social media along with a photo of Noem with Trump.
It is not the first time that Noem has captured national attention.
A month ago when he posted one informative video about cosmetic dental surgery received out of state.
In a nearly five-minute video on X, she praised a team of cosmetic dentists in Texas for giving her a smile she said she can be proud of. “I love my new family at Smile Texas!” she wrote
In 2019, it remained behind the state's anti-meth campaign even as it became the object of some ridicule for the slogan “Meth. We're in it.” Noem said the campaign got people talking about the meth epidemic and helped get some into treatment.
