Why Gov. Noem's case for killing Cricket matters for hunters
Why Gov. Noem's case for killing Cricket matters for hunters
South Dakota's "Sportsman-In-Chief" misfired as a leader and hunter, and it matters
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem misfired this week, and hunters and dog handlers need to speak up about it.
The Guardian newspaper reported on a sad tale from Noem’s upcoming book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.” The portion of the book shared was about how she killed a 14-month-old German wirehaired pointer named Cricket. She said she hated the dog and called it aggressive, a livestock killer, and untrainable.
I first took the story with my usual skeptical grain of salt. Noem is a flashpoint politician who likes to be in the headlines, and some outlets love to oblige. When it comes to decisions about animals, second-guessing people’s actions is shaky.
But on Sunday, Noem not only confirmed the story’s content with other media but doubled down in its defense with obtuse righteousness. I looked into it deeper. No real second-guessing is required here.
She blew it, and that’s terrible news for upland hunting and those of us who run working field dogs, be they retrievers, pointers, or hounds.
The national media is focused on Noem’s political aspirations. What should matter for every hunter is her actions in light of her self-proclaimed stance as “Sportsman-In-Chief” of one of our nation’s most cherished upland hunting destination states. That makes her an outdoor figurehead and national leader.
The values she reflects hit every upland hunter right where we live, no matter what state we’re in.
Here’s what happened
The Guardian reported that her book includes the fateful tale of Cricket and why some 20 years ago, as a 30-something rancher and mother—who also opened a hunting lodge about that time—she decided to take Cricket down the gravel pit at the family ranch and dispatch the young bitch with her shotgun.
She then decided while she was at it, she would drag an unruly billy goat down there and turn her scattergun on that critter as well.
She gets some (minimal) props for honestly recounting what she calls a “difficult, messy, and ugly” moment, especially when she gets to the part about wounding the goat and returning to the truck for another shell to finish the job. (I hope she grabbed at least two shells that time.)
The Guardian also shares the part that mentions her daughter coming home on the school bus shortly after this ordeal and asking, “Where’s Cricket?”
Unfortunately, the newspaper, or maybe Noem, doesn’t provide us with details on the emotion or how she answered that question, which might have added helpful perspective.
Noem said the story illustrates her willingness in politics and life to do anything, no matter how difficult, if it simply needs to be done. That rings hollow where Cricket is concerned.
“Needs to be done” is the critical phrase. How it was done doesn’t help, either.
Why politics is secondary
Noem held her ground on Truth Social Sunday (and provided a link to preorder her $30 book).
She wrote: “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. Sadly, we just had to put down three horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years. If you want more real, honest, and politically INcorrect [sic] stories that’ll have the media gasping, preorder “No Going Back.”
And there it is. Shift blame to the politically correct media for constantly clutching its collective pearls in judgment—and sell your book.
What a cop-out. Her response is the kind of lazy rhetoric expected from someone who would rather shoot a dog than go through the complex, frustrating work of training it—or who is too cheap to send it to a professional trainer.
The Noem family would have had the resources or people to turn to for help with an unruly pup. It also has to be said that South Dakota state law requires euthanasia of any horse to be carried out by a certified veterinarian. So, those three cherished horses put down on the ranch recently didn’t meet their maker at the end of a shotgun barrel at the gravel pit.
“Politically incorrect” has nothing to do with this. She acted irresponsibly 20 years ago but presumably would defend anyone doing the same today. She told a story to make herself look steadfast, but instead, she came off looking stupid. Her editors let her down, and hunters need to be the ones to set this straight.
This is not what we do. We need to be sure people know that.
Inevitable deaths
To be clear, she’s not wrong about ranch and farm life and that many people probably don’t understand some of the tough situations. There's no doubt about that. Farm life is hard, and animals sometimes have to be put down. Judgment calls have to be made. Ranchers don’t always have the luxury of time to wait for a vet.
It’s called self-reliance. They have to have it.
But that wasn’t what Noem described.
We are also not too far past a time when purebred working dogs were ruthlessly culled. They are still in serious breeding programs. But nowadays, they are neutered for pet-only homes, or animal husbandry regulations require euthanization, often by a vet.
Do people still skirt the rules? You can bet on it. But nobody applauds the shoot-shovel-and-shut-up crowd.
Plenty of people object to legal culling, but breeders are not in the business of feeding unproductive mouths. This is partly why there are so many rescue groups nationwide that specialize in adoptions for purebred working dogs.
Ethics and hunting’s future
Being an ethical sportsman is not cow-towing to cancel culture or to be politically correct. It is recognizing the value of wildlife and all living things, doing our best to treat those lives with respect, and passing those values along.
When we hunt, we pursue and consume a public resource: our wildlife. Public scrutiny naturally and rightly comes with that privilege. But if public pressure is the only thing motivating us to treat animals with respect, we’re in big trouble.
Over the past five decades, I’ve seen attitudes change but have consistently written about hunting, trapping, and eating wild game and fish while keeping a broad-interest audience entertained. It’s not that hard, and I never compromise my principles. I try to do things right, but I’m not perfect either. I try to share stories of my mistakes as teachable moments.
As we age, learn, and reflect, we owe it to the next generations not to sugarcoat the past but to share stories truthfully and thoughtfully and to offer more innovative ways forward.
Noem held up a low point in her past as a somehow courageous act and blamed a politically correct mob for not understanding. She is old enough to know better.
All those years ago, she was not addressing a need that required her to do something ugly; she was hateful and impetuous. That’s a story about a mistake to learn from, not a bragging point to boost your profile.
From the dog’s point of view
For those who don’t know dogs, a 14-month-old hunting dog, especially a pointer, is a work in progress. Heck, even a laid-back Labrador can hit what we call a rebellious teenager stage around the 1-year-old mark. Their brains are still developing, and physically, they are just beginning to fill out their gangly bodies.
Back in the day, some trainers didn’t even start fieldwork training with a gun dog until it was at least a year old.
Of course, there are exceptions. I call them prodigies, the dogs that arrive on this Earth “pre-trained,” for lack of a better description. I’ve heard those stories firsthand.
“We put her out, and she just pointed. It’s always been automatic. She always checks back and wants to please. It’s always been easy with her.”
“We brought him out hunting as a pup, and he was always happy to sit still with us. We didn’t know anything about actual training. We’d tell him to get the ducks, and off he’d go. He never lost a duck. He was just a natural.”
By and large, though, hunting dogs are bred to be high-energy and birdy. There are myriad reasons—mainly relating to their owners—why a dog might veer out of control or learn it can get away with aggressive behavior to get its way. Bringing them around can be a long road of complicated, ugly work. There can be as many failures as successes—on both sides.
Noem reveals her ignorance by sharing that she let an admittedly poorly trained 14-month-old pointer, apparently wearing an e-collar, out in the field during an active pheasant hunt. From what I’ve read, whether the hunters were friends or clients is unclear.
She wrote that she thought the pup would follow in the footsteps of the older, well-trained dogs.
But the inevitable happened, and she writes that the dog went bird-crazy, would not respond to the e-collar, and ruined the hunt. Any half-experienced handler could have told her that would happen before she flipped the lever on the dog box.
First, you never, ever use a live hunt as a training exercise; too much is at stake.
Secondly, she set that dog up for failure, setting herself up for what must have been horribly embarrassing.
The hard truth that should have been in that portion of her book is that she ruined that hunt, not the dog. That’s one reason her tale of a “need” to do “what was right, not easy” rings hollow.
Some story bits I picked up from the Guardian’s retelling of her book hint that Cricket was a biter and aggressive. We don’t know if she snapped and left marks on people trying to handle her, attacked a child without provocation, or attacked someone and drew blood—or why. There are big differences among those scenarios.
Whatever the case, those hints indicate she was probably an alpha female.
Again, that wasn’t the dog’s fault.
I used to hang out with a former Baptist minister who became a dog trainer. He loved a hard-charging alpha female better than any stout male, but he said they tended toward hardheadedness and aggressiveness. They distribute their love selectively.
“There’s a reason they call ’em bitches,” he used to say with a grin.
Noem also writes about the dog getting loose at a neighbor’s house and running around like “a trained assassin,” littering the yard with dead chickens. Noem had to pay for all the dead birds on the spot.
It wouldn’t have taken much for a wound-up wirehaired pointer to rip through a flock of chickens. Cricket probably scooped up a fat old hen and shook it, and that was it. Another biddy went clucking off, and the chase was on—pure euphoria. I can imagine the chaos.
But again, it was Noem’s responsibility to contain the dog in the first place, and she was the one who couldn’t get the dog back under control. It was not the dog’s fault.
Want vs. Need
“I hated that dog,” she wrote.
I bet. It’s tough to accept your shortcomings when they explode with joy, a wagging tail, and a hot, panting, slobbering mug with a lolling tongue flopping right in front of your face.
I’ve been there in that pit of seething disappointment. Ooh, yeah, I cussed a storm a time or two in my younger days. But I always managed to regroup like a football coach who can lose his cool in the heat of the moment but recover to take the team back to the drawing board. It’s a matter of recognizing that you are a part of the problem.
Dog and handler, you are a team. That’s just how it is.
The governor hated that dog, gave up on it, and killed it. That’s caving into a strong desire, not meeting a regrettable need.
The governor’s apparent inability to look back on that episode as a shortcoming from an important leadership position at the age of 52 is a sad commentary on her character and any woodsmanship she learned in her life’s outdoor journeys.
Worse, it casts a shadow on hunters and dog handlers as a whole. We need to make it clear that her actions with Cricket do not represent our values.
This type of thoughtful column is one of many reasons that I miss the outdoors page of the Tulsa World.
Charlie Transue
Tulsa