Noem's critter dispatch defense: A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do

It’s often said that we don’t get to pick our parents, and just as obvious is that animals don’t get to pick their owners.

But if you’re a critter, better pray that you don’t end up in the household of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, whose penchant for discipline and gunfire are a deadly mix for anything on four feet.

The lurid details of what sounds much like a Valentine’s Day Massacre of family pets would normally, you would assume, be brushed off as fake news — except that Noem provides the account herself in a new book that is widely regarded as her dossier in the Donald Trump vice presidential candidate sweepstakes.

In this book we learn about Cricket, a wirehaired pointer with an “aggressive personality,” who needed to learn a thing or two about how to behave in the field.

According to The Guardian, “By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

That was the beginning of the end for poor Cricket, who, we are to presume, might have survived that particular episode — but some canines just don’t know when to call it a day.

“Noem describes calling Cricket, then using an electronic collar to attempt to bring her under control,” The Guardian says. “Nothing worked. Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.”

Cricket was acting like a “trained assassin,” as the sobbing owner of the chickens looked on in horror. Noem pulled out her checkbook and compensated the chicken-owner “for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime.”

Uncontrollable. Reveling in chaos. Blind to the discomfort of others. It sounds like Cricket would fit right in with the Freedom Caucus, but instead of going to Congress, Cricket earned a one-way trip to the family gravel pit (all the finer South Dakota homes have one).

Noem “realized what I had to do,” so she grabbed a gun and popped a cap in Cricket, whose reign of chicken terror was over once and for all. But for Noem, the thrill of killing a family pet only get her bloodlust up — so she went after a hapless billy goat who found himself in a wrong-place-wrong-time situation.

Noem didn’t like the way the goat smelled, so she dragged it to the gravel pit as well. The first shot only wounded the creature, (time out: keep in mind that Noem is recounting this story because, I guess, she must believe it makes her look good) so the blood-spattered governor wales away again at the writhing animal, dispatching it once and for all.

But no sooner had the smoke dissipated from the gun barrel when the school bus arrived, dropping off Noem’s children. “Kennedy looked around confused,” Noem writes of her daughter, who asked: “Hey, where’s Cricket?” Oh those merry mix-ups that occur when you’re out shooting pets.

Who knows how much of this story is true, and we understand it’s only told in the context of gaining approval of Trump and horrifying the political left. But the obvious question becomes: What does it say about a presidential candidate and his political movement, when you believe the best way to impress them is by shooting a dog and a goat?

Besides, we know The Donald is too occupied with reading the Bible, his “favorite book,” to ever pick up Kristi Noem’s tome.

So lady, next time you want to score political points, feel free to write about your economic policy or something.

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Here's why a governor says she killed her puppy: 'I had to'