In No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, the Republican politician said she then took Cricket to a gravel pit and shot it.
“It was not a pleasant job. But it had to be done,” Ms Noem wrote, according to an excerpt obtained by The Guardian.
She then realised “another unpleasant job needed to be done” and proceeded to shoot the family’s “nasty and mean” goat in the same manner.
The goat, however, needed to be shot twice.
When the school bus dropped her daughter off shortly after, she asked: “Hey, where’s Cricket?”
“I guess if I were a better politician, I wouldn’t tell the story here,” Ms Noem said.
Online backlash from opponents
Ms Noem’s story sparked an online backlash from her political opponents and dog lovers.
“If you want elected officials who don’t brag about brutally killing their pets… vote Democrat,” the Democratic National Committee said.
Meghan McCain, the daughter of John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said: “You can recover from a lot of things in politics, change the narrative etc – but not from killing a dog.”
Ryan Busse, the Democratic candidate for governor of Montana, said: “Anyone who has ever owned a bird-dog knows how disgusting, lazy and evil this is. Damn.”
Ms Noem defended herself in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying: “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm.”
She promised more “real, honest, and politically incorrect stories” in her upcoming book.
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