South Dakota’s Gov. Kristi Noem killed her family’s 14-month-old dog Cricket

Kristi Noem is South Dakota’s Republican governor. When she first ran for governor in 2018, she was endorsed by Donald Trump. She’s full MAGA and, reportedly, she’s on Trump’s shortlist for his running mate. She used her position as governor to kill off South Dakotans by protesting all masking requirements during the pandemic. She’s 52 years old and married, but there were widespread rumors last year that she was or is banging Corey Lewandowski, who is a Trumper piece of sh-t. All of this should give you an accurate portrait of just who Governor Noem is and how she operates. A lot of people already despised her, but now pretty much every American is ready to destroy her. Noem has released a memoir and one of the biggest stories in it is Noem’s narrative about how she killed family’s puppy, Cricket.

Kristi Noem, a strong contender to be named running mate to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has managed to go one further – by admitting killing a dog of her own.

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant. What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season.

Noem includes her story about the ill-fated Cricket, she says, to illustrate her willingness, in politics as well as in South Dakota life, to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it simply needs to be done. 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”.

Noem describes calling Cricket, then using an electronic collar to attempt to bring her under control. 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 the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like “a trained assassin”.

When Noem finally grabbed Cricket, she says, the dog “whipped around to bite me”. Then, as the chickens’ owner wept, Noem repeatedly apologised, wrote the shocked family a check “for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime”. Through it all, Noem says, Cricket was “the picture of pure joy”.

“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable”, “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog. At that moment. I realised I had to put her down.”

Noem, who also represented her state in Congress for eight years, got her gun, then led Cricket to a gravel pit. “It was not a pleasant job,” she writes, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realised another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

Incredibly, Noem’s tale of slaughter is not finished. Her family, she writes, also owned a male goat that was “nasty and mean”, because it had not been castrated. Furthermore, the goat smelled “disgusting, musky, rancid” and “loved to chase” Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes. Noem decided to kill the unnamed goat the same way she had just killed Cricket the dog. But though she “dragged him to a gravel pit”, the goat jumped as she shot and therefore survived the wound. Noem says she went back to her truck, retrieved another shell, then “hurried back to the gravel pit and put him down”.

At that point, Noem writes, she realised a construction crew had watched her kill both animals. The startled workers swiftly got back to work, she writes, only for a school bus to arrive and drop off Noem’s children.

“Kennedy looked around confused,” Noem writes of her daughter, who asked: “Hey, where’s Cricket?”

[From The Guardian]

At no point does Noem think “hey, maybe this dog is too young to be trained for hunting” or “maybe Cricket can be more of a family pet than some kind of super-trained hunting dog.” Or even: maybe this young dog isn’t a good fit with the Noem family but Cricket will make a good pet to some other family. The puppy was only 14 months old!! Noem literally murdered a dog because SHE couldn’t be bothered to train Cricket properly. The part where Cricket is just a happy dog, racing around and having fun… it makes me feel sick. That poor dog.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

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143 Responses to “South Dakota’s Gov. Kristi Noem killed her family’s 14-month-old dog Cricket”

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  1. Smile says:

    She is a sick freak.

    • TOM says:

      The sadism is the point. It’s a tryout to say she’s up for the job as Trump’s vice-president.

      • Agnes says:

        Yep she probably thought, now he’ll see I have the stomach for any assassination he orders carried out under his Supreme Court granted immunity. This made me so sick. That poor pupper.

      • FancyPants says:

        And Donald hates dogs- this won’t bother him one bit, probably even bumps her up the list!

      • Lolo86lf says:

        Hey if she was willing and capable of killing her own pet it is quite possible she would agree to have let’s say undocumented migrants killed at the border. Perhaps that’s the kind of vibe she wants to emanate to the American people if she became vice president.

    • HillaryIsAlwaysRight says:

      Behavior of a sociopath. Wonder how many other small animals she’s killed. She should be committed, not running a state. No wonder Tr*mp sees her as a potential running mate. Devoid of empathy. These people have no souls.

    • ML says:

      Omg, this is horrible news! I have no words for this: It’s completely heartbreaking.

    • Drea says:

      Quite literally the most Nazi thing she’s ever done.

      “I’ll do what needs to get done.”

      F-ing sociopath. Unfortunately, her only undoing is that she doesn’t understand to not say the quiet part out loud.

    • Lau says:

      Pathetic excuse of a human being. Also this kind of behavior tells us exactly what kind of person she is.

      • CTolentino says:

        So true she’s a typical maga maggot, she’s even bragged she got her 2 year old grandson a real shotgun on his bday — She taught her daughter how to hunt when she was 5 yrs old–those poor children!!! She could of easily taken that poor puppy to a rescue group and it could of been trained and got a nice forever home!!! And she kills a goat because it had normal male goat smells– there’s a special place in Hell for her!! Between her and MTGreen I don’t know who’s the most disgusting and classless! Vote Blue save the USA from Maga nutjobs and save Democracy!!!

    • AM_76 says:

      She’s a monster.

  2. Piper says:

    I’m just in shock tbh – I don’t know what to say.

    • Agnes says:

      It’s like bragging about killing your kids for being naughty, when you’ve never taken the time to teach them good manners. I do feel so sorry for her children, they are damaged in ways they’re never going to realize without a lot of pain.

    • TheFarmer'sWife says:

      Having fostered and owned rescued (and abandoned) hunting dogs, I can’t stress the need for early and gentle obedience training enough. It doesn’t matter what breed; simple training needs to begin the first day you get your puppy. Puppies are often pulled from their mothers too early to exploit their cuteness. A good hunting dog requires patience, with consistency being paramount. Like people, dogs have different traits. A series of simple tests between 8-12 weeks would’ve shown which puppies in Naomi’s litter would be better suited to hunting and which would not.

      • JudyB says:

        Not only did she not select the puppy properly from the litter, but very early training would have prevented all these problems. And how could she have visited anyone without putting the puppy on a leash??? She is obviously a really stupid and lazy person for not training her dog BEFORE taking him out hunting or visiting!!!

        Basically, she destroyed a dog for being a dog. Incredibly dumb.

    • Lorelei says:

      Same. The fact that she likened a 14-month-old puppy “a trained assassin” is just…🤯

  3. LooneyTunes says:

    I hope he picks her as his running mate. White people love their dogs.

    • Moira's Rose's Garden says:

      They may love their dogs but that won’t stop them from voting for the Ignorant ticket.

      But it’s also funny that dogs don’t like either one of them. Dogs know.

      • North of Boston says:

        MRG, the thing is
        “mistreating and killing your family dog in cold blood is is a very bad horrible thing no one should do”

        will just be one more thing that suddenly becomes NBD, perfectly acceptable for people to do if they are a Republican politician. Like inciting or being an active part of a violent deadly insurrection, coup attempt, or stealing, selling super classified documents and showing them off to random donors, fascists, enemies of the US.

        And people who disagree with them, who point out how awful she is will be labeled by MAGA trumpists as woke snowflakes crying liberal tears.

      • pottymouth pup says:

        I’m seeing MAGA folks completely turned off by this. She may well have blown her chance at the being the pick for VP (though it wouldn’t stop Trump from giving her a position in her cabinet, possibly Dept of Agriculture)

      • Shawna says:

        @pottymouth pup – I hope Tr*mp doesn’t understand this, picks her as a running mate, then FAFO.

    • Olive says:

      Not that her supports will be deterred, but all this story tells us is that she makes impulsive poor decisions. There were multiple other options for how to navigate the situation and she chose the messiest one. She also retells her thought process with pride demonstrating a lack of reflection. Imagine how she would handle decisions impacting the entire country…

    • BeanieBean says:

      ‘White people’? Everybody loves their dogs.

      I lived in the Deep South, though, and they treat their dogs differently there. Dogs are strictly outdoor animals. They have their little house, their little patch of land to which they’re tethered, and that’s it. I asked a co-worker why he didn’t bring his dog inside (can’t remember the weather event) and he said, and scratch up my floors? And they’re big on hunting & gun rights down there; unfortunately, all too many people will see nothing wrong with what she did.

      • Dss says:

        Yeah I adopted 2 pugs from a middle couple in arkansas. She insisted they were outdoor dogs. I told nope not anymore. They are spoiled rotten my me and my family, which is the way it should be!

      • Kate says:

        I’d never heard the term “yard dog” before I moved into the South. It really blows my mind how some (not all) folks here view their animals.

    • Jennifer says:

      All people who have dogs love their dogs. She is psychotic. There were about 50 other options than this. Good thing one of her kids wasn’t untrainable.

      • DK says:

        I took the original comment to mean “white people, Trump’s biggest supporters, love their dogs,” not just that ONLY white people love their dogs (as in, the MAGA base she was showing off for will also be upset by this).

        That said, as others have pointed out, this kind of disgusting, thoughtless, sloppy solutions to problems one created oneself approach is the MAGA MO, so we’ll see…

      • DaveW says:

        Sadly not true (replying to the comment all people who have dogs love dogs). Worked around rescue too long.

  4. Nanea says:

    The poor puppy.

    This disgusting person clearly shouldn’t have pets, nor kids.

    I loved how Xwitter sent John Wick after Kristi Noem and how so many Democrats posted cute dog and other pet pics.

  5. equality says:

    So how long did she let the goat knock down the children before she decided to do this? And she’s never heard of fences for livestock? She doesn’t sound exceedingly bright. This story has started my day off with a serious bought of nausea.

    • Lightpurple says:

      And she brings her checkbook pheasant hunting

      I believe she murdered her daughter’s pet. I don’t believe a word of her explanation

    • original_kellybean says:

      She also has never heard of a leash. She could have leashed the dog BEFORE it killed the chickens. That sweet dog was still a puppy and pointers are very excited hyper dogs since they are hunting dogs. This woman is a HUGE asshole. I hope karma gets her. Disgusting human.

  6. Giddy says:

    Disgusting, evil woman. Do her children already know that their Mommy Dearest shot their puppy? Or will they someday read that passage and hate their mother? I sincerely hope that this spells the end of her political career.

    • Blithe says:

      Her kids are now in their 20s. They know.

      If they don’t know now that the book is out and receiving a LOT of attention, that suggests some really interesting things about Noem’s parenting.

  7. Moira's Rose's Garden says:

    Not at ALL surprised to this revelation. She’s just trying to one up the stories from Bob$tch (she who is actually her own 2nd cousin, escort to many GOP members, married to an ephebophile & queen of the public handjob), Sarah Palin & MaggatTaylorGreen.

    Nothing like wearing evil and ignorance on your sleeve like a badge of honor.

    Remind me what these people are allowed to hold office?

    • I remember being in SD and watching her in a commercial – killing caged birds who were let out of the cage. She had them to kill during the commercial – Sick Cunt!

  8. Mel says:

    Absolutely disgusting human being to do this to an animal. I hope karma comes for her hard!

  9. Mario says:

    She said she “hated” the dog and legit thought that telling people she shot a 14-month old puppy, who wasn’t even fully grown, nor mentally/behaviorally mature yet, for being “untrainable,” was a flex. Like, she’s been PROUD of it since it happened.

    Most chilling of all, she was so pumped from killing the dog, she turned around and got a goat to shoot in the same pit right afterwards for some other b.s. reason.

    This woman is pure evil, as far as I am concerned. When people delight in killing or torturing animals, it’s always a sign they aren’t someone who should be trusted with people either.

    • Blithe says:

      I have a question for those who hunt responsibly. Noem shot the goat, failed to kill it, then, went back to her truck for another shell. Wouldn’t even a confident hunter have extra shells with them before taking on such a task — to avoid even the possibility of needless suffering? Would it be the norm to take a shot in a non-emergency situation, with only one bullet?

      As an urban progressive, I’m repulsed by this story— as intended. I get that the pet lovers will be enraged by the story about the puppy. Is her description of the incident with the goat enough to anger responsible hunters/farmers too — or is this really not unusual?

      • Rnot says:

        Yes. It’s very undesirable to wound something without killing it right away. Responsible hunters make a serious effort to avoid it by carefully choosing their first shot and being ready for an immediate followup. She makes it clear that she acted impulsively out of anger and embarrassment rather than necessity.

      • Blithe says:

        Thanks for your comments — sharing your knowledge and experiences @Rnot!

      • kirk says:

        Re: the goat: Anybody with goats knows that male goats not intended for breeding should be neutered (castrated), ideally within the first few months before sexual maturity. This can be done surgically by a vet, or the goat owner can do it themselves with well-known home methods. Noem’s attempt to show she’s tough enough to kill animals makes her look like a looney-toon who makes wasteful decisions. Why kill a goat that can be neutered? Why kill a dog that can be trained?

  10. Please be his running mate so this story is told more and more…
    “Pro lifers “ killing living beings SMH

  11. sevenblue says:

    There is a reason why the line from Community got so popular: “I can excuse racism but i draw the line at animal cruelty”. I also think she miscalculated with whatever she was trying to achieve. Remember the woman who called the police on a black man who was bird watching in the park. People made sure her dog, she was strangling while trying to call the police, got taken away from her. There were a lot of angry tweets from white women about the poor dog. If you are running on Republican ticket, you need white women vote and that is how you lose them.

  12. Lea123 says:

    Bet she threatens her kids with a “trip to the gravel pit “

    • Brassy Rebel says:

      Those kids must have been thoroughly traumatized if she told them exactly what she did.

      • BeanieBean says:

        Sounds like their bus stop was at the bloody gravel pit. They knew when they were young; they knew their mother.

      • NotSoSocialB says:

        Guaranteed. I was around 10 when a stray kitten found our house and climbed up the screen door, meowing. It likely followed the smell of the meal. My father got up, got a gun, pulled the kitten off the screen door, and shot it ; leaving it in an area of the strip of woods around the house where I played most often. I can still see it all pretty clearly, almost 50 years later. The cruelty is the point.

    • Jaded says:

      Her kids are all in their twenties, the eldest just got married. I hope they haven’t inherited their mom’s utter, cold-blooded contempt for animals.

      • Lorelei says:

        Imagine willingly marrying into that family, knowing this crazy b!tch will be not only your MIL, but most likely the grandmother to your future children. I guess there really is a lid for every pot, no matter how despicable that pot may be. SMH

  13. Brassy Rebel says:

    Nothing says psychopath like savagely killing a 14 month old puppy—in a gravel pit. The goat story is equally disgusting. The dog was acting like a young, untrained dog. The goat was acting (and smelling) like a goat. I’m very glad my governor, Tim Walz, is among those dragging her.

    And aren’t you supposed to train hunting dogs BEFORE you take them hunting? If she didn’t know how to do it, and, clearly, she did not, she should have taken Cricket to a reputable trainer. I’m sure there are many in South Dakota, a beautiful state but loaded with unrepentant Trumpers who won’t be at all bothered by their bloodthirsty governor.

    • Lucy says:

      Her state is one of the few that has pheasant hunting as a thing, so there’s for sure tons of resources for training a bird hunting dog. I’ve known people who spent serious $$ to get their dogs trained, they board with a trainer and it’s like $800+ a month (15 years ago). Every thing she’s furious about it’ is just a puppy that wasn’t trained. And the idea that bringing a puppy on one hunt with trained dogs is all you need to do is monumentally stupid. People who are serious start when the dogs are 5-6 months old, being around the smell and sound of guns, and behavior around the prey birds. If that hunt was the only “training” the dog got, it was too late for most of it.

      Anyway. It does show she’s a true Republican – set the dog up to fail then k*ll it when it fails, because it was a bad one she hated.

      • BeanieBean says:

        Just FYI, 17 states allow pheasant hunting. I was curious, so I googled & found the info in findlaw.com; it has information on hunting laws in all 50 states.

        This woman, though, her solution to a difficult problem is to shoot it? Damn. From reading the other comments it would seem all her kids reached adulthood, so that’s a relief.

  14. TN Democrat says:

    Lort. The women is a nut job and proud of it, but most magats are ultimately deranged and have no interest in life, Vote these lunatics out of office.

  15. Emily says:

    Appalling.

    If her dog was on a leash, it wouldn’t have been able to kill chickens. And imagine training your dog to hunt peasants and then getting upset when it kills birds, like you taught it to.

    • Blithe says:

      @Emily, That’s quite a typo! PLEASE don’t change it. It’s probably more accurate than we know — especially when it comes to reflecting the whims of the upper echelon MAGAts.

    • Lucy says:

      The dogs don’t hunt the birds? There’s usually several dogs, but dog jobs are smell/locate the birds, maybe flush the birds on command for the hunters (can also be a person who does this), retrieve the bird. It sounds like her dog was probably running around flushing the birds Willy nilly which sends all the birds in the area off. Training dogs to do this stuff takes a long time and starts when they’re very young, she’s a gd moron to act like a single hunt with trained dogs at that age would be anything other than what ended up happening.

    • BeanieBean says:

      Willing to bet not only does she not leash her dogs, she doesn’t spay or neuter them. Same with the goats, doesn’t pen them or neuter them. (OK, if they’re raised for farm production purposes, meat or milk, I can see not doing that. Sort of.)

  16. Jais says:

    Wtf. Can she not be charged with animal cruelty? This story should take her out of the VP running. I said should bc clearly there’s a lot of sick people out there so it probably won’t.

    • Amy Bee says:

      She probably put that story in her book to appeal to Trump.

      • Truthiness says:

        Someone, maybe Noel Casler, said that dogs HATE Donald Trump. Like it was a predictable reaction. Remember how that eagle photo op went south when the eagle went for him?

        At any rate even some Republicans say Noem’s political career is over.

  17. Amy Bee says:

    She’s a psychopath.

  18. Concern Fae says:

    She basically killed the dog so she could call it untrainable, rather than let it go live with another family, who would probably have trained it up just fine. She didn’t want to be embarrassed.

    • BeanieBean says:

      Exactly. Untrained, it wasn’t suited for hunting. Fine, let it go to someone who wants a pet companion; it didn’t deserve death.

  19. Miranda says:

    My in-laws are visiting, and it was actually my FIL who first alerted me to this disgusting, infuriating story. He’s a hunter, and has done so with several different breeds, and he said that while a dog can learn the basic skills needed for hunting in about 6 months, it can take a couple years or more to master them to the point of consistency. In my own experience (my family has bred and owned Irish Wolfhounds for about 50 years, and because they’re unfortunately a short-lived breed, we’ve gone through a lot of them), most dogs at 14 months are still mastering the basic obedience skills to be a good family dog. This sentient lump of Botox is just lazy, impatient, and bloodthirsty, and does not deserve to be a pet owner.

    • Agnes says:

      “This sentient lump of Botox” hahaha. Has anyone else noticed the greenish cast to her skin? “And your little dog, too.” She is wicked, and everyone who has raised a puppy with love and care knows just how.

    • BeanieBean says:

      Are we sure about the ‘sentient’ part?

  20. CattyKeen says:

    Someone on Threads suggested a ‘tall cool glass of anti-freeze’ and I have never agreed more with someone I’ve never met. This woman is beyond disgusting

    • Giddy says:

      There was also a depiction of her all geared up for the big hunt…camo, automatic weapon proudly displayed. The caption read “Kristi Noem on her way to the dog park.” I am amazed that she is so out of touch that she didn’t know how her rotten tale would be received. Makes her look not only like a psychopath, but deeply stupid.

  21. Paula Ziegler says:

    Magas will defend her and magasplain that obviously you know nothing about dogs or dog training.

    • Brassy Rebel says:

      They will also claim this is rural culture which people in blue states don’t understand. Ftr, this is not the way the overwhelming majority of rural people treat their animals. But that won’t stop Trumpers from accusing city folks of being out of touch with rural voters.

      • QuiteContrary says:

        A lot of rural folks are chiming in and pointing out that they’d never do something this cruel and psychopathic. Even conservative ones.
        The outrage is understandable. She’s a terrible person.

  22. FancyPants says:

    Cruelty to animals is the origin story of every serial killer. She is truly proud of this behavior, because “it shows she’s the one who can deal with things that are difficult, messy, and ugly.” No, Kristy, shooting a helpless dog is not the difficult thing to do- the difficult thing would be to spend time training and loving the dog anyway, you disgusting ****.

  23. Dahlia6 says:

    I hate this woman and hope every bad thing that can happen to a person happens to her.

  24. seaflower says:

    Disgusting excuse for a human being.

  25. Ely says:

    South Dakotan here – Kristi Noem is as horrible as this story illustrates.

    Not surprisingly, she is a racist af and is repeatedly instigating conflict with indigenous communities here. She has been banned from at least four area reservations in recent weeks and those folks have been really fighting the good fight for years to call KN out.

    I would encourage anyone to google about her horrible actions toward tribes here and find a local group to support. NDN collective is a good one or any org that is working to preserve indigenous traditions – Boys with Braids Rosebud also comes to mind…

    • Blithe says:

      Thanks for the suggestions @Ely. I’d like to learn more about the organizations that you’ve mentioned, as well as others with similar goals.

    • BeanieBean says:

      I just googled that. Wow! She barred from four reservations–out of nine total in SD, which equals about 10% of the state! That is wild! And glad the tribes did this! Thanks for alerting us to this issue, Ely!

      Wow, reading more of this article from CNN. She is vile! Linking the tribes to drug cartels???

  26. Tashiro says:

    What a disgusting piece of shit human being.

  27. Jay says:

    Seems she heard Romney’s story about tying the family dog to the roof of the car and thought “I can top that”. What a disgusting human.

  28. Redheadwriter says:

    At least three tribal reservations in South Dakota have banned her from entering their sovereign lands. She’s disgusting.

  29. Blithe says:

    One thing that I find interesting about this story: I’m guessing that Noem may have had a co-writer or a ghostwriter. She must surely have had at least one editor, perhaps an editor to scan specifically for potential legal issues, and probably a few readers prior to publishing this book. Either none of them were concerned about leaving this story in — or some were, and decided to keep quiet, as a gift to the voting public. Both could also be true.

  30. Elsai says:

    What a vile woman. She is everything about a human that is most despicable. Pure evil.

  31. Jayna says:

    I felt like I was reading a story, filled with dread, knowing something bad was going to come, but believing it would probably be accidental. I didn’t realize it was going to be a horror story told by a psychopath.

    I feel sick. But most of all I am furious!!!!!!! She is a despicable human being. The photo of Cricket did me in, though.

  32. Gracie says:

    I know several people who either hunt with dogs or breed hunting dogs, and they only very rarely have to find a better home – typically they just don’t take that dog hunting lol. Also, even the best trained hunting dogs will have their moments with chasing birds, especially a puppy, and certainly most dogs can never be trusted with chickens. IMO the situations she described were not demonstrations of aggressive dog behavior, but dog behavior. There were so many alternatives in this situation, and I believe she has appalled many who respect their hunting dogs and would never do anything to harm them. I am assuming she bought that pup from a breeder and wonder what the breeder thinks – the breeders I know would be trying to take legal action if their pups met this fate.

  33. ooshpick says:

    Canadian here. Don’t know this p.o.s. How about not taking cricket to an overstimulating environment when he is not ready. How about doing the necessary work to ensure the safety of a vulnerable animal. oh wait. Are you from the Republican party? hmmm makes sense. The lesson is: be ready to fall in line or die.

  34. Dani says:

    Veterinarian here. She is a shit human being. She didn’t even TRY to train that dog. And while legally allowed, shooting your dog out in a pit in your yard is so unnecessary and brutal. All she had to do was talk to her vet. We do behavioral euthanasia when warranted and provide a much more humane experience. And she could have just had the goat neutered.

    • Agnes says:

      I read animal cruelty, abuse, and neglect is illegal in SD, and some people have already filed charges against her. It’s cruel to kill a puppy for acting like a puppy, abusive to shoot it in the face with hatred, neglectful not to train it for the situations she put it in. I can’t wish enough bad things for her.

      • Dani says:

        I agree it’s horrible and cruel. But unfortunately, still legal in most states. People are even legally allowed to practice medicine on their own pets. I hope the charges that are brought against her stick but I sadly don’t have much hope for SD. Poor sweet pup.

    • khaveman says:

      OR…..give the dog up and let someone else give it a good life since you’re fed up with it. Doesn’t deserve the cruel way she offed it.

      • Dani says:

        Absolutely. This dog could have found a home with someone who would have actually trained it or even just kept it as a pet. But KN is soul-less so that would likely not have been a thought in her head.

    • MoonTheLoon says:

      I also don’t expect she merely walked Cricket to the pit and set him gently inside, muttering words in a comforting voice. She had likely screamed at him and done lord knows what else. I don’t doubt Cricket’s exit was a violent one from the moment she decided he needed to d1e. That poor little angel. This is why I have such a sympathy for animals. They truly are at our mercy. RIP dear Cricket. 😢

  35. Traveller says:

    There is a special place in hell for monsters like this.

  36. Kristin says:

    Former South Dakotan here. @Ely – thank you for everything you posted. Kristi Noem has committed so many atrocities. She is a monster.

    Any time I see anything about this horrible excuse for a human being (sentient lump of Botox – perfect @Miranda!) I feel like it’s my duty to post this ad for when she ran for the state House in 2010. After the ad became the butt of a lot of late night tv jokes, the SD republican party had it scrubbed from the web… but the internet is forever. If you have 2.5 minutes to watch it, this ad is a hilarious ride. And if not, please keep spreading it to highlight how unbelievably incompetent she is, and always has been. How this woman was ever elected is beyond anyone with a brain. As a bonus, she’ll probably be pissed that people will see her pre Man with the Hair of a Radioactive Skunk-Barbie face and bloomin onion hair

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5v5k11Kg8E

    • BeanieBean says:

      I canNOT believe they created that one-to-one comparison with her opponent & thought that made her look good!!! 🤦‍♀️. That Matt Verilek guy was quite accomplished! And still is, I had to google him. She, on the other hand….

    • Amy T says:

      I’m as horrified as everyone else here – and couldn’t even read past the headlines until I saw it on this site and knew I’d be surrounded by a crew of like-minded readers.

      Meanwhile, Matt Varilek (autocorrect keeps trying to change it to Matt “Virile,” so maybe it knows something the rest of us don’t) seems to be doing great, and I bet he’s never shown cruelty to a dog that wasn’t a corn dog…..https://mn.gov/deed/about/who-we-are/commissioner.jsp

      Thanks, @Kristin, for the link to that ad.

    • paintybox says:

      Kristin, wow, thanks for the share. That was unbelievable – they were only a phrase away from calling her barefoot and pregnant all her adult life! That women like her are being used by the white Christian male hegemony doesn’t make me feel sorry for them, don’t get me wrong – she’s an adult and complicit as hell. Ugh.

    • Kristin says:

      Glad you all enjoyed it! It is truly astounding that they created this… and then she won the election. I’m happy that Matt Varilek (or Virile – ha) corndogged his way out of there, to bigger and better things, meanwhile, Noem was back at home on the farm, murdering innocent animals, being racist, homophobic and transphobic, denying science and women’s rights, being a christo-fascist misogynist, kissing the ass of a tyrant/con-man/criminal/grifter/traitor in an effort to be his VP… list of horrible things continues.

  37. Janet says:

    Please. Stop equating dogs with humans. Born or unborn.

    • Jaded says:

      What on earth are you talking about? This is an article about a woman shooting 2 animals in cold blood who didn’t deserve to be treated that way. We’re not equating dogs with humans FFS.

    • Mario says:

      What the heck are you talking about. No one has done that, here, or anywhere else I’ve seen. That said, the fact that animals aren’t humans doesn’t mean that they aren’t living creatures, and when we voluntarily take them into our care, we have responsibilities toward them. Even when an animal is minding its own business in nature, there are only certain circumstances under which you can harm and/or kill it legally at any given time.

      That’s the very reason animal cruelty laws exist. You can’t treat an animal any way you want just because it’s an animal. That’s like saying a parent can treat a child anyway they want because the child is a minor. Not only is it nonsensical, it’s sick AF and speaks to a potential level of psychopathy that goes far beyond a lack of empathy.

      There’s a very real reason the links between the childhood mistreatment of animals and later adult abuse (and even murder) of humans has an established, well-documented, validated link.

    • Traveller says:

      Please don’t tell me what to do, feel, or say just because you are indoctrinated to believe that only human life matters. I AM prepared to be the one that equates all animals to humans as I believe all life deserves to be treated humanely.
      Animals feel, have the will to live, need and want security, love, and kindness like any living being does, whether you are prepared to believe it or not is irrelevant.

      • Bumbles says:

        Amen. Humans are renowned for believing only their own lives count, all other lives can be tortured, killed, hunted, experimented on and exploited for human food and whatever else humans want.

        An animals life is worth JUST AS MUCH as a human life. It is their life, their only, precious life. It is not there for us to take.

        This woman is obviously evil and deranged. Hunting, however, is the same thing. The lives of animals are still worthy even if they are wild and deemed legal to hunt or living in the hell of being livestock and murdered for the human palate. All animals must be protected and loved, not just domestic animals.

  38. BeanieBean says:

    Wow. I just…wow. I’m thinking hell for her should be dogs & goats chasing her forever & always, nipping at her limbs.

  39. Cali says:

    If you want proof that Kate Middleton’s hair situation is not all that bad, I give you Kristi Noem.
    The fakest hair extensions ever!
    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/26/trump-kristi-noem-shot-dog-and-goat-book#img-1

  40. Mesha Nova says:

    I heard that Trump hates dogs and cats. I wonder if this is her way of saying I will do whatever is necessary (unlike weak ppl like Pence) to kill your enemies, etc. It really chills my bones that this evil person could be Trump’s VP. If they’re actually elected, they will never leave. Such a scary thought.

  41. paintybox says:

    Everything about “Gristly Gnome” is nauseating. How do the Republicans keep finding these malignant Barbie dolls???? Every time a tribe bans her, it’s a great day.

  42. Mslove says:

    I would like to point out that the Christian bible says we are supposed to treat animals with respect and care, particularly those who work the lands. This b!tch is a hypocrite as well as a psychopath.

  43. Shawna says:

    She baited that poor dog by putting it in a hunting situation, then killed it for acting in a developmentally appropriate way. Monster.

  44. NotSoSocialB says:

    That the G.reedy O.bsequious P.erverts party normalizes this just cements my long held belief that the sociopathy rate at 4% of the genpop is waaaaaaaay underestimated.

  45. Ann h says:

    So she will kill anything that is an inconvenience to her life, but abortion is still a no no? What a hypocrite, and a horrible person at that.

  46. khaveman says:

    This sickens me and is appalling. Just fn give the dog up. It didn’t deserve to die just because it wasn’t a good “hunting dog.” What a cruel use of force against an animal. Absolutely disgusted at her cruel behavior.

  47. EviesMom says:

    This woman is appalling. Her political party is morally bankrupt & I expect no less from them. She’s a star candidates straight from GOP central casting. Blarf.

  48. Gisby says:

    I hope her kids take well to training…..

  49. Lola says:

    Counterpoint: What she flies off the handle one day and decides to do Don the Con the same way?

  50. Norman Bates' Mother says:

    Why is this legal in USA? In Poland she would be going to jail. In Greece a guy killed his wife and family dog and he got 11 years just for the dog, on top of life sentence for the wife.

  51. Mimsy says:

    this might’ve been posted elsewhere, but generally, it means she’s a terrible owner of animals. When you leave a goat unneutered, it smells really bad
    ; there’s a name for it, but I don’t remember what it’s called. So she didn’t get her goat “fixed,” and that would’ve solved the problem of the smell. And others pointed out she didn’t train her dog, which would’ve solved that problem too. I was also really heartbroken that she writes about her daughter getting off the school bus and asking “where is cricket”? And she’s somehow proud of all of this.

    it reminds me of when Mitt Romney got a lot of flack for saying he put his dog in a crate on the roof of his car. This is so much worse.
    From what I’ve read, it’s actually blowing up big in her face, because it’s just showing such poor judgment.

  52. Scarlett says:

    I just got here fresh off the Ethan Hawke story, thinking….what a wonderful read first thing in the morning.

    Why oh why did I read this article….what a horrid horrid horrid sorry excuse for a human. Run free Cricket, hope you make a lot of friends past the rainbow bridge where you will be loved.

  53. Nope1 says:

    I’ve been reading Celebitchy daily for 15 years at least and have never commented before.
    I heard this story over the weekend and could not imagine why she would share it, such a strange flex. But this excerpt explains it – construction workers saw her do this. She’s trying to get in front of the story, in case it ever comes out. Make it seem like she was doing something intentional (and inexcusable) vs rage killing.

  54. DaveW says:

    Can we drop her and the guy in Wyoming, who thought it would be a hoot to torture & parade around a bar the (dying) wolf he intentionally hit, in the middle of a forest as starving bears are coming out of hibernation or some other way animals can take their revenge?

  55. UpIn Toronto says:

    Only MAGA would consider cruelty as strength. Look at their leader,.who makes fun of everyone, including disabled people, and you’ll see why these cruel and violent and easily manipulated people are the biggest problem in society today and disrupting our institutions and democracy, if we let them!!

  56. Nikki says:

    Utterly horrifying that life is so cheap to her. Criminal that she didn’t try to find a home that was a better fit for the pup. I’m horrified, and she’s a MONSTER.

  57. Sheri says:

    I did the proper thing and did my civic duty. Since she is a female dog (if you get my drift), I sent a package of Milk Bones to the governor’s residence in South Dakota.

  58. blue says:

    I had no idea that So. Dakotoans are such entrenched cretinous brutes that they actually voted for this woman for anything, ever.

  59. Jen says:

    How much of a psycho do you have to be to not only murder a puppy but proudly write about it in your memoir?

  60. Duchess of Corolla says:

    She is a piece of crap, just like all trump sycophants. Disgusting. I hate her.

  61. Yep says:

    Psychopath. Don’t even know where to start with this. Sicko.

    We also have right-wingers in Australia but it would be political suicide for our politicians to share this kind of a story. Shocking.