Kristi Noem Should Not Be Allowed to Own Pets...or Guns

She's proven she's responsible with neither

Meet my rescue dogs, Duke and Winnie. We have had Duke, a Shepherd/Pyrenees mix, for seven years. We adopted Winnie, a miniature Aussie, about a year ago. Both were in our local no-kill shelter, and both have been a sweet addition to our family.

Where they previously lived in cages, they now they spend their days chasing squirrels on our little farm.

We’ve had Winnie a while, but we are still learning her quirks. She was found running along the highway, so there was no information on her. We have since learned that she is not a fan of men she hasn’t been around, and will growl at them and has even attempted to bite a male relative. When folks come over, we put her in her kennel because we don’t want her to hurt anyone, and we don’t want to trigger her anxiety. When she is outside, she has a perimeter fence to keep her away from anyone who may come to the door. She still growls, but she can’t reach anyone. Easy fix.

We adopted Duke after he had been returned to the shelter twice for food aggression and other unlikable behavior. The shelter decided to send him though training and he graduated from the local “Puppies on Parole” program at a nearby prison. Duke knows every command and is gentle with all humans — he’s a good boy.

That said, Duke hates small farm animals and has even tried to chase our mini-donkey and cows. He would gladly be a chicken-killer if allowed. We know this about Duke so we have the perimeter fence to keep him in a specific part of the yard too. It’s actually a huge space that allows him to wander and feel free, but he can’t go into the pasture or after the animals. Again, an easy fix.

I introduced you to my dogs and their problems before I tell you an awful story about Republican South Dakota Governor, Kristi Noem. If you haven’t read the story, I am sorry for the outrage you are about to feel: she shot her 14-month-old hunting dog because “she hated that dog” and because the dog killed chickens.

This was a bird dog, bred to hunt and retrieve birds. Last I checked, chickens fall into that category.

Here is an excerpt from Noem’s new book talking about killing her puppy, Cricket:

During a pheasant-hunting trip, the dog went "out of her mind with excitement," and later attacked another family's chickens. And when she went to grab Cricket, Noem says, the dog whipped around to bite her.

"I hated that dog," Noem wrote in the excerpt. The dog was "dangerous to anyone she came in contact with" and "less than worthless" as a hunting dog.

"I realized I had to put her down," she wrote.

I was pretty horrified by the admission to killing a family pet and throwing it into a gravel pit — she also killed a goat and threw his body into the same gravel pit — but the part of the story that made me write this post is this statement by Noem:

"We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm"

Nope.

I will not let her spread a narrative about rural folks without telling the story of humane people who live in rural spaces, with livestock and dogs, who do not shoot dogs because they hate them or because of behavior.

You know about my dogs. You know they will kill animals and bite people. You know that I am a rural person…you should also know I’m also a gun owner. My inheritance from my father was guns. That’s pretty common out here.

So, I manage to own dogs and livestock and guns and I have not shot a single family pet because of bad behavior?

Yes. And so have my neighbors.

There is a story to be told about the lack of animal control and shelters in many rural spaces, but I don’t have the time to write about it here. Are aggressive dogs who are dumped or wander onto farms shot? Yes. It is unfortunate but usually due to that lack of animal control and shelters. Do rural folks go around shooting family pets? No.

Like I have written here, dogs do show up on our place occasionally and we reach out to find the owners. I see lost dogs on my rural community Facebook pages all the time. We may be rural, or living on farms, but we are not out shooting dogs. That is frowned on, even in the sticks.

If Noem’s first instinct is to kill a dog for bad behavior, she should not be able to own a pet. It’s irresponsible and wrong.

But, even more worrisome? She has easy access to a cache of guns and ammunition. And, after admitting to not only shooting a family dog, but also a goat on the farm, Kristi has admitted to being a systematic animal abuser with a short fuse. An abuser with easy access to guns.

There have been studies on the link between those who abuse animals and those who abuse humans, but I am not a doctor and will not diagnose Kristi Noem. I will say that she is irresponsible with both pets and guns and should have access to neither.

One last note, Noem is reported to be in the running for Trump’s VP position, and that would make all the sense in the world. It has been widely reported that Donald Trump dislikes animals too.

The good news? If there is one issue left on the planet to unite the right and the left, it’s this: we all hate animal abuse.

~Jess