Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor and a leading contender to become Donald Trump's running mate, has revealed in a forthcoming book that she killed her own dog and a goat. The admission has drawn sharp criticism and mockery, with one political commentator likening her to a serial killer.
In her memoir, No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, Noem describes shooting Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehair pointer, after the dog attacked a family's chickens and bit her. She writes that Cricket was 'untrainable' and 'dangerous to anyone she came in contact with', and that she 'hated that dog'.
Noem also recounts killing a male goat that she described as 'nasty and mean', with a 'disgusting, musky, rancid' smell, which had knocked down her children. She shot the goat at a gravel pit, and when it initially survived, she fetched another cartridge and 'put him down'.
In the book, Noem admits that 'a better politician' would not tell such a story, but defends her actions as necessary. She says she wanted to illustrate her willingness to do 'difficult, messy and ugly' tasks. The episode has been compared to past political controversies involving Richard Nixon's dog Checkers and Mitt Romney's dog Seamus.
Tommy Vietor, a former adviser to Barack Obama, called Noem 'Jeffrey Dahmer with veneers' on Friday, referencing the serial killer and a recent scandal over her cosmetic dentistry. Noem has not yet responded publicly to the backlash.
