“I hated that dog,” Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a rumored contender to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate, wrote about a 14-month-old dog she shot dead in a gravel pit.
She included the story about Cricket, a female wirehair pointer she was training to hunt pheasant, in her upcoming book No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward. The Guardian obtained a copy of the book, which is set to be released on May 7.
Noem, 52, is a lifelong South Dakota resident who is a rancher, farmer and business owner. She has already had New York Times-bestselling success as the author of Not My First Rodeo: Lessons Learned From the Heartland.
Before she was elected to be South Dakota’s U.S. House of Representatives member in 2010, Noem served in the state legislature. She was elected as the state’s first female governor in 2018 and she was reelected with the largest vote total in the history of South Dakota in 2022.
Noem lives with her husband, Byron and their three children, Kassidy, Kennedy, and Booker.
“All have a deep love for their family and an even deeper love for the Lord,” according to her website.
In her new book, Noem said that Cricket had an “aggressive personality,” according to The Guardian’s report. She explained that she included the story to illustrate how life can get “difficult, messy and ugly.”
One day, Noem decided to take the dog on a pheasant hunt with other, older dogs in an effort to calm her down. However, the governor claims Cricket ruined the hunt.
She said the puppy was “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.”
As they made their way home from hunting, Noem stopped to talk to a local family. There, she said Cricket attacked chickens. After the dig crunched them to death, the owner of the chickens cried. It was around that point that the dog whipped around and tried to bite Noem, and she determined it was “untrainable” and comparable to a “trained assassin.”
Noem also described the dog as “less than worthless” as a hunting dog. She decided after the pheasant hunt incident that she would have to put Cricket down. She got her gun, took the dog to a gravel pit and shot it.
“It was not a pleasant job,” she said, “but it had to be done.”
South Dakota’s governor didn’t stop there. Noem also decided to kill a goat she didn’t like. In the book, she explained that the animal was aggressive since it had not been castrated and would chase her children. It jumped as she shot it the first time and she had to go back for another shell to finish the job.
“At that point, Noem writes, she realised a construction crew had watched her kill both animals,” said The Guardian. “The startled workers swiftly got back to work, she writes, only for a school bus to arrive and drop off Noem’s children.”
Her daughter Kennedy seemed confused, said the governor.
“Hey, where’s Cricket?” she asked her mother.
Since The Guardian reported on the Cricket excerpt from Noem’s book, she has received backlash online.
“Most responses, particularly from dog lovers and people who hunt with dogs, simply expressed disgust,” said the outlet.
In an X post with a screenshot of the article, Noem said: “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.”
Noem has been rumored as a potential vice president pick for Trump, who is now the presumptive GOP presidential candidate, for months. Late last year she gave him her “full and complete endorsement,” after introducing Trump at a campaign rally in Rapid City, S.D., said POLITICO. People in the crowd were holding Trump/Noem signs.
This March, Trump described Noem as a “very special woman who’s hot as a politician,” during a campaign rally in Ohio, per CSPAN footage. He also said “she’s doing an incredible job in South Dakota.”
“As soon as Joe Biden got in the White House, I went on defense,” Noem said about the current president during the event. “All I do now is fight to protect the freedom of my people.”
This Friday, Noem also wished former First Lady Melania Trump a happy birthday in an X post. Previously, Audacy reported on Melania’s rumored favorite to be Trump’s vice president – former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who now has a show on X. We also reported that Trump’s eldest sons have taken key roles in helping their father pick a potential VP, cabinet members and more.