Kristi Sticks to Her Guns

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem brags in her new memoir that she’s a “doer,” the kind of problem solver and leader America needs.

As we all know by now, Noem’s solution to the problem she was having with her rambunctious 14-month-old dog, Cricket, was to drag her into a gravel pit and shoot her.

Then she shot her goat.

As a dog lover (and I have no quarrel with goats), I’m as horrified as millions of other Americans to hear this story. I’m not surprised by the pundits’ conclusion that Noem has now dropped off the short list of candidates to be chosen by Donald Trump to share a spot on his ticket as vice president. Hell, she’s sure lost my vote.

What is Trump’s reaction to her dog and goat story? She’s “a terrific person” who “had a bad week” of negative publicity. “We all have bad weeks.”

This is true. But we don’t go out and shoot our dogs (and goats). Political analysts are saying that despite Trump’s charitable comment on Noem, there’s no way he can now peg her as v.p.

I was so interested in reading Noem’s full account of her shooting spree that I went to my local Barnes & Noble to absorb every word of those several dramatic pages. No, I sure as hell wasn’t going to buy the book. I knew I could pluck a copy off the shelf, take it to the store’s coffee shop and read what I needed. As a public service, I will tell you what I transcribed.

First you should know that Noem posed on the book’s cover above a sign stating: “Well behaved women rarely make history.” Also, she’s a foxy-looking lady, which is doubtless why Trump was interested in “running” with her. We know he has an eye for the ladies. (Hello, Stormy!)

On the back cover is this endorsement from Trump: “Governor Noem is a tremendous leader, one of the best. This book, it’s a winner. It exposes the problems we’re facing and lays out a fantastic plan to make America great again. You’ve got to read it!”

This is what Noem wrote in the dedication of her book: “I am not perfect but strive to be. I’m complicated yet look for simple solutions based on common sense.”

That’s all prelude to the section she entitled “Bad Day to Be a Goat.” I had to skim through her pedestrian self-serving rants all the way to page 101 before I found what I was seeking.

She relates the fateful day when she hosted a group of guests at her hunting lodge, part of her ranch. She anticipated a jolly day of hunting down and shooting pheasants. It didn’t turn out that way. Other creatures would be gunned down instead.

Noem decided to take along a few of her experienced hunting dogs “and one young dog named Cricket.” Noem informs us Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old “and she had come to us from a family that struggled with her aggressive personality.”

“Cricket was out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life. The only problem was there were no hunters ready to shoot the birds she scared up…We all watched helplessly as dozens and dozens of pheasants exploded from the grass and flew out of sight. The hunt was ruined. I was livid.”

Noem and her guests gave up and, dejected, headed back to the ranch house. On the way there, Noem stopped to see a neighbor’s puppy. But Noem had not put Cricket in the cage of the truck with the other dogs.

“Cricket launched herself out of the back end of the pick-up truck and raced across the yard.” She was sprinting toward the neighbor’s prized chickens!

“She systematically grabbed one chicken at a time, crunching it to death, then dropping it to attack another. She was a trained assassin. I got my hand on her collar and she whipped around to bite me.”

Noem admits Cricket didn’t actually bite her. But she wrote: “I hated that dog.”

“As I drove home, I realized I had no choice. Cricket was untrainable and, after trying to bite me, dangerous to anyone she was in contact with. A dog who bites is dangerous and unpredictable (are you listening, Joe Biden?) —especially if you are running a business where people interact with your dogs. Besides that, she was less than worthless to us as a hunting dog.”

(Dear reader, that swipe at Biden refers to his own problem with his dog, Commander, who repeatedly bit Secret Service agents at the White House. Biden’s solution to the problem was to take the dog elsewhere. Biden didn’t shoot Commander.)

Picking up Noem’s story: “At that moment, I realized I had to put her down…I decided I had to deal with this problem myself. This was my dog and my responsibility and I would not ask someone else to clean up my mess. I got my gun, grabbed Cricket’s leash and led her out into the pasture and down into the gravel pit.

“It was not a pleasant job but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done. Walking back to the yard, I spotted our billy goat.

“This goat had been a problem for years. He was nasty and mean, as most male goats are that are left uncastrated. Male goats urinate on their own heads and beards, hoping to attract females with their putrid smell. It’s the most disgusting, musky, rancid smell you can imagine…He also loved to chase my kids. He would knock them down and butt them. The wretched smell was impossible to get out of their clothes and we had to burn too many shirts and jeans. My children were terrified of this animal…

“So, while taking care of unpleasant business, I decided now was as good a time as any to dispose of this problem too. I went down to the corral, caught the goat and dragged him out to the gravel pit. I tied him to a post.

“But when I went to shoot him, he jumped at the last second. My shot was off and I needed one more shell to finish the job. Not wanting him to suffer, I hustled back to the pick-up, grabbed another shell, hurried back to the gravel pit and put him down.”

Noem recalls that soon afterward her kids came home from school and one of them, Kennedy, asked: “Hey, where’s Cricket?” Noem doesn’t tell us what she told the kid.

Noem concludes her account by writing: “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell that story here. But I never ask anyone to do my job for me, even if it’s difficult, messy and ugly. I’ve made plenty of mistakes but ignoring problems has never been one of them.

“Being a leader isn’t always fun and leadership isn’t limited to speeches and internal meetings. It’s often messy, ugly and matter-of-fact, dealing with a problem that no one wants to deal with. The world is full of talkers and ‘avoiders.’

“We need doers.”