South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) offered a more detailed explanation on Wednesday of why she shot her 14-month-old dog after a flurry of backlash from her first telling of the story. She said that it was “dangerous” and she was protecting her kids.
Noem shared her comments while speaking with Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
“It was a dog that was extremely dangerous,” Noem said. “It had come to us from a family who had found her way too aggressive.” The dog named Cricket was a wirehaired pointer, a breed of hunting dog the American Kennel Club notes is eager, affectionate and energetic.
"(They're) balanced, well muscled, resilient, agile, and generally built to beat the bushes all day long without tiring," the AKC writes.
Noem came under fire last week after The Guardian reported on her new book, “No Going Back,” in which she detailed how she killed Cricket when she was 14 months old by shooting her in a gravel pit.
“It was not a pleasant job, but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done,” Noem wrote, alluding to the difficulty of telling her daughter what happened.
She told FOX News: "You know how the fake news works. They leave out some or most of the facts of a story, they put the worst spin on it. And that’s what’s happened in this case.
“I hope people really do buy this book and they find out the truth of the story because the truth of the story is that this was a working dog and it was not a puppy. It was a dog that was extremely dangerous.”
While speaking with Hannity, she offered more detail on the situation that had put her in hot water, saying that the dog was creating an unsafe situation.
“We were her second chance. And she was — the day she was put down was a day that she massacred livestock that were part of our neighbors,” she continued. “She attacked me. And it was a hard decision.”
Noem went on to say that the choice was easy for her because it was between “keeping my small children and other people safe, or a dangerous animal, and I chose the safety of my children.”
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In the days after the report from The Guardian came out and she was criticized, she took to X to confirm that the story had been true.
“I can understand why some people are upset about a 20-year-old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book — No Going Back,” she wrote Sunday on X. “The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned.”
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