A potential running mate for Donald Trump in the US election has continued to defend the killing of her family’s puppy after saying the animal was “extremely dangerous”.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem told Fox News that the 14-month-old pointer, named Cricket, was a “working dog” and “not a puppy.”
She said in the interview that the dog “came to us from a family who found her too aggressive,” adding that the animal had “massacred” a neighbor’s livestock the day she shot it, there is about 20 years old.
The Republican governor continued: “At the time, I had young children, a lot of little children working around our business and our people, and I wanted to make sure they were safe.”
Ms. Noem, who is being examined as the Republican vice-presidential candidate during this year’s US election, he also said the dog was “extremely dangerous”.
The account of Ms. Noem killing the wirehaired pointer was first reported by The Guardian last week after obtaining a copy of her book, titled No Going Back: The Truth On What’s Wrong With Politics And How We Move America Forward, which must be published. this month.
Since then, she has defended her behavior on several occasions.
The mother of three writes in her book that she took Cricket on a bird hunting trip with older dogs in hopes of calming her down.
However, she claims the dog attacked one family’s chickens and then “turned around to bite me.”
Ms. Noem said she therefore led the dog to a gravel pit and shot it.
Political rivals have criticized Ms Noem since the story broke, as experts working with hunting dogs said she could have trained the animal rather than killed it.
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Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz posted on X: “Post a photo with your dog that doesn’t involve shooting him and throwing him in a gravel pit. I’ll start.”
The post included a photo of him feeding ice cream with a spoon to his Labrador mix named Scout.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign shared a photo of the US leader walking on the White House lawn with one of his three German shepherds.
Mr. Biden’s dogs who allegedly bit staff members were transferred or removed from the President’s House in Washington.
Ms. Noem tried to present her actions as an example of her willingness to make difficult decisions.
On Sunday, she wrote on the social network X that the decision to kill the dog “was not easy, but often the simplest solution is not the right one.”
South Dakota Senate Democratic Minority Leader Reynold Nesiba says Noem’s decision to share the details in her book is calculated, saying a story had been circulating among politicians for years that the governor had killed his dog in a “fit of anger”.
“She knew it was a political vulnerability and she needed to express it before it was raised elsewhere,” Mr Nesiba said.
“Why else would she have written about it?
