A Hard Decision? I Think Not.

Emmi and me.

I just had to put my thoughts on Kristi Noem shooting her puppy (a 14-month-old dog is not an adult. While they may look like an adult, behaviorally they still demonstrate puppy behaviors) down on "paper" so I can hopefully let it go. If you haven't heard about this, she wrote about shooting her dog in her book after it killed some chickens (and ruined a pheasant hunt by well, acting like a puppy) and thought it showed her ability to make a hard decision. She wrote that the moral is that leaders deal with problems immediately. That makes her a “doer,” she claimed, not an “avoider.”

Cricket was a hunting dog. The behaviors she describes are normal for an untrained hunting dog at that age whose needs are not being met. Dogs at this age may still display puppy-like traits such as playfulness, curiosity, and high energy. They are in the adolescent phase, which can include testing boundaries, stubbornness, and impulsive behavior. Social and emotional maturity, including the ability to handle stress and interact appropriately with other dogs and humans, may continue developing until around 24 months. This dog had a lot of energy and was not taught how to manage that energy. Cricket was a bird dog. She shouldn't have been allowed to wander and get at chickens. She shouldn't have been taken on a pheasant hunt before she was ready. What Kristi Noem did was cruel and uncalled for. It was not a tough decision. It does not show she is a doer and not an avoider. It was an impulsive decision from someone who lost their temper. She said she hated the dog. That comment shows that she took Cricket's behavior personally. It was personal for her. Cricket was simply being who she was: a hunting dog who had not received the proper support or training. Cricket was an inconvenience to her. It was the easy way out. She was a quitter. She acted without doing any research or thought. Instead of consulting with a professional and putting the effort and time into management and training or rehoming or even taking her to a shelter, she shot her dog.

I think part of why it bothers me so much is this is what would have happened to Emmi if she went to a someone like Kristi Noem. Emmi lunged at me, bit me, had no clue how to manage her energy or be calm. Her original owners realized they didn't know how to work with her and were worried she would hurt their disabled son. They didn't shoot her. They realized they didn't have the time or resources to work with her. They loved her and made the tough decision to rehome her. I had never had a dog with this kind of behavior but, I knew it was not aggression. I researched, I read, I reached out to professionals. I learned she was a dog who didn't know how to channel her energy or be calm. Normal for a field dog who had no training and did not have her needs met or had any structure. She kept me up nights worrying, she frustrated me, she made me cry. Did I hate her? No. I just hated her behavior. None of this was a reason to shoot her! We worked on it and she became an amazing companion and therapy dog.

How about the goat? After she shot Cricket, she saw the goat and decided he needed to die too. He chased and butted her kids and smelled. So, she dragged him off to the gravel pit as well. What farmer doesn't know to castrate a male animal who is getting aggressive (if he was even aggressive)? You don't shoot it. Read her account. I won't share the details but suffice it to say, the goat suffered. I don't think acting out in a murderous way when you are angry is a good trait for someone in government.

What bothers me even more about her is why she was so confident the public would admire her for it? In what world do you think shooting your puppy is something people will praise you for being a doer? The people who actually do admire her for it worry me as well.

You know what a tough decision is? It is loving a dog and doing everything you can to give that dog a good life and then needing to make that extremely painful and difficult decision to let them go to prevent suffering when they are ill and dying and in pain. And it is being there with them as they leave because they were always there for you. That is a tough decision.

Dogs love us. We are their world. I have no doubt that Kristi Noem as disgusting as she is, was Cricket's world and that Cricket loved her.

Shooting her was not a tough decision. It was a cruel, impulsive and bad decision from a person who has no compassion or empathy and is unable to control her anger. Someone who is not willing to put any effort into a living being who they took responsibility for and who deserved that effort. It shows she acts out on emotion. It shows she thinks she knows things she doesn't. It shows she acts alone and does not reach out to experts when she has an issue. It shows she makes snap judgements and acts on them. It shows she did not interpret Cricket's behavior accurately. It shows she is not willing to do anything that takes any effort to mitigate the situation. Hard decisions dealt with immediately? No, more like rash decisions based on poor judgement and narcissism. This is not someone we want having anything to do with running our country.

Note: the photo is just one I found on the Internet and not Cricket, just the same breed.