The South Dakota governor has faced days of criticism from her fellow Republicans and Democrats, alike, after admitting to killing one of her own puppies.
A video showing a dog reacting in fear to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has gone viral on social media, after she admitted to killing one of her own puppies in a gravel pit following a pheasant hunting trip—however, the clip is not real.
In recent days, Republican Noem has faced a wave of backlash after British newspaper The Guardian published an excerpt of her upcoming book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward. In the book, the governor shared an account of shooting a 14-month-old puppy named Cricket, which she wrote had an « aggressive personality. »
On the way home from the trip, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked a family’s chickens, « grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another. »
This made the chickens’ owner cry and Noem paid them while also helping clean up the mess the dog had made. She added that when she grabbed Cricket, the dog « whipped around to bite me. »
« At that moment, I realized I had to put her down, the governor wrote, adding that she « hated that dog, » describing Cricket as « untrainable » and « dangerous to anyone she came in contact with.
