So there’s this kerfluffle over Kristi Noem killing a dog. As usual, the headline is designed to make a Republican look bad, and you have to read down into the story before you get to the real meat of the matter. “Kristi Noem kills dog after bad hunting trip!” That is a lie by omission. Yes, she killed the dog after the dog proved to be worthless at hunting birds. But a hunting dog that can’t or won’t hunt can still make a fine pet. No, what happened AFTER the hunting trip is why the dog had to be put down.
On the way home, the dog escaped her truck and attacked a local family’s chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another,” Noem wrote.
When Noem tried to grab the dog, she wrote that it whipped around to bite her. Noem said she wrote the family a check for their chickens and helped them dispose of the carcasses “littering the scene of the crime.”
“I hated that dog,” she wrote, adding that Cricket was untrainable, dangerous and worthless as a hunting dog.“
At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the correct answer. Not being able to hunt is one thing. Killing chickens is another thing all together, and when you live in a rural area you cannot have a chicken-killing dog. Period. Either Gov. Noem had to put the dog down, or one of her neighbors would be doing it far less peacefully when the dog went out to kill chickens again. If my neighbor’s dog came down and started killing our chickens, I would be waiting with a scoped rifle for the next time it left their property. That dog would simply disappear. This is the way is must be, if you want eggs and fresh chicken in a stewpot and being able to talk to your neighbors without them telling you about another bird your dog has killed. One of my neighbors further up the road had a Labrador that started killing his chickens. That Lab was disposed of. Those chickens provide eggs. The family sells the eggs to raise money. No chickens = no eggs = no money. The Lab had to go. Trust me, you can always get another dog. The shelters are full of them, sadly. But raising chickens costs quite a bit of money if you’re not getting any eggs or meat from them. It’s an investment. A chicken-killing dog is Bidenomics to that investment.
As for her killing a male goat that was chasing the children? This as well is perfectly normal and acceptable. Animals in the country exist to serve us, not the other way around. An aggressive goat can do a lot of damage to children. A goat being BBQed can fill their bellies.
The people freaking out about this are people who have never once been outside of their protective bubble. Sometimes real life demands hard choices. When I read the story, I just shrugged and went “Yeah. So?” I think it would do this country a world a good if many of those pampered bubble dwellers had to actually see where their food comes from, and perhaps harvest that food themselves. The first time I helped harvest and butcher an animal I became much more appreciative of the food on my plate, and the people who work to put it there. I think that lesson needs to be taught to an entire generation these days.
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My wife summed it up quite neatly, years ago. When I was lamenting the idiocy of our fellow citizens, she opined, “people today are too far away from the farm “. They don’t understand real work, responsibility, & the food ’facts of life’. The situation has not improved over the years.
You beat me to this thought. But now the issue is that too many are away from the farm and voting. This revelation puts Kristi out of consideration for a VP slot.
Frankly, she should have known not to publish this.
This mindset in endemic in any society where kids are taught that food comes from the corner market and electricity comes from those little slots on the wall.
Stephen King wrote briefly of the Second Plague in “The Stand”, where a largish percentage of those whose passive immune system beat off Captain Trips failed to remember that Life is never fair, “red of tooth and claw”, and died of The Dumbs.
She said things a while back that turned me off a bit. Now? I’ll give her another look. What she did was not easy, and needed done. I’ve had to put a dog down, and the mental image is still clear and not inviting. But life ain’t all rainbows and unicorn farts.
There is a acronym popular around here, SSS, shoot, shovel, and shut up. Why she only made it two thirds of the way though the recipe is beyond me.
It is a rude and careless neighbor who’d let a a dog run free onto another’s property, putting that neighbor into a position of having to shoot the dog. That’s just unacceptably bad neighbor behavior.
I read that headline and thought, “musta needed killin’ “. Living in the boonies, we have to put down animals for all sorts of reasons; nothing new here. But your assessment that it will be taken ‘wrong’ by those sheltered and pampered,,, yup!!!
Noem putting down a worthless chicken killing dog is of no consequence to me, I’ve done the same thing numerous times here in the outback of Texas, the last one though was hard, he was a good one….
I spent upward of two grand to repair his broken hip that he got jumping off the back of the pickup to chase a deer….Catahoulas are impetuous and require a lot of love and discipline, which I gave him in spades (he was named Donnie, in honor of our rightful President) but I digress….
anyway the vet had told me that his hip would always be vulnerable, sure enough he broke it again, so I put him down myself and buried him on our property with tears in my eye….it’s just what country folk do…..humanely….
I’ve also had to put down a couple of good horses that just got to the end of life……who in their right mind wants to see an old horse that has helped raise kids and has been part of the family for years just wither away and die in agony? Lefties I guess…..so I just did it myself with tears in my eye and a greatful heart for their years of faithful companionship, something city dwellers and bunnie lovers just don’t understand, nor. do they want to.
But…..Noem vetoing a bill that would have prevented perverted males from participating in female sports and activities….males showering and dressing in the presence of girls…what should be a private and protected sanctuary for the girls….but under threat of law the girls have no recourse….but to be subjected to humiliation and sexual harassment is unconscionable…. why she did that I have no idea….but she showed her true bona vides with that action.
Despite her country and folksy midwestern facade, she’s evidently bought and paid for by the swampy woke sodomites that are trying their darnedest to take this country down….I’m a NO on NOem….
Been stopping by here almost every day since the Palace of Reason. This might be my first time commenting since, as the old punchline goes, “Up ’til now everything’s been okay.”
I’ve been around the block more than 70 times now and during those years I’ve become an expert at one or maybe two of the many things things that are of interest to me and somewhat knowledgeable in one or maybe two others. One of those things is bird dogs, specifically pointing dogs. And I have to say, regarding this Kristy Norm thing, that I have rarely seen such ignorant bullshit masquerading as some sort of expertise and authority. I live on a farm with horses and chickens and bird dogs and I wouldn’t know a protective bubble if it bumped me in the ass. I’ve been a big game hunter and bird hunter for my entire life and I’ve raised and trained bird dogs and run them in field trials and run many field trials and hunt tests (no small tasks, those). So I may know a little more about the subject in general than the average commenter here. Here is my perspective on Kristy Noem murdering her dog for all the wrong reasons (See what I did there?)
The account that I read describes a 16-month-old female German Wirehaired Pointer, the canine equivalent of a human teenager. By the way, I’ve known hundreds of German Wirehaired Pointers and have never met a mean one. Noem brought her juvenile dog to an unorganized pheasant hunt and turned her loose with other older dogs ostensibly so that the juvenile pointer could learn how to hunt by watching the older dogs. (That’s not quite how it works, and she started about year late.) The account implies that Noem’s dog had had no training at all prior to this event. The juvenile dog then proceeded to do exactly what any experienced bird dog handler would expect; that is, it ran wild and free, flushing all of the birds that it could find outside of shooting range.
From the dog’s point of view: What wonderful fun!
Noem characterizes this as a lack of hunting ability and apparently says that the juvenile dog was “untrainable” and ruined the hunt. All of those notions are utter nonsense. In my experience the account describes a young dog who is full of life, with a strong prey drive and unlimited potential that could have been nurtured and successfully directed in the hands of a moderately experienced trainer. Which Norm obviously is not. Not even close.
The next account is of the young dog “escaping” from Noem’s truck during a visit at some random farm on Noem’s way back home from the failed hunt later the same day. Another gross mischaracterization. Accurately put, Noem failed to properly secure and restrain her dog – an obligatory step for the dog’s own safety, and that of any chickens or semi truck bumpers that might wander past. That failure is entirely on Noem, not her unfortunate dog.
Strike one
The bird dog then “attacks” a flock of free-range chickens at this farm. Something the dog had been encouraged to do with the flock of wild pheasants just hours before. What did Noam expect her young dog to do under such circumstances? Experienced dogs can tell the difference between wild birds and domestic birds but a young dog won’t. And the notion that once a chicken killer always a chicken killer is simply incorrect. A bird dog can be trained to tell the difference and respond appropriately. It is actually quite an easy thing to accomplish and visitors to my farm witness this fact every day. This unfortunate incident is also entirely on Noem and not the dog’s fault at all. (And I am not at all persuaded that the dog attempted to bite Noem, given her other gross mischaracterizations. GWPs are not at all disposed to be aggressive toward people.)
Strike two.
Then. apparently, Noem writes “I hated that dog.”
Let’s examine that again, just in case we missed it the first two times:
“I HATED THAT DOG.”
This is what poker players call ”a tell.” What rational person can hate a juvenile dog that is full of life and joyfully doing what she was bred to do and encouraged to do just hours before: hunt birds. As frustrating as the failed hunt must have been, as embarassing as the chicken incident must have been, how could Norm expect her young inexperienced dog to be able to distinguish between the pheasants she was encouraged to “attack” in the field earlier, and the chickens she was negligently allowed to attack later on the farm.
Strike three.
Noem is a rising star in the conservative movement, of which I am a proud member. In my view now, she has serious character flaws; not the least of which is a willingness to murder an innocent dog and then lie out loud to herself about the circumstances and her reasons for doing so, blaming her poor dog for her own inexcusable failings. Was her public account of this incident meant to make her look pragmatic? Decisive? Tough? Politics is a tough business that requires an appearance of toughness in people who desire success.
I’m disappointed to see that some here whom I’ve come to respect seem unable to fight their way out of their own protective bubbles and toward what appears to be the meat of the matter in this particular instance.