Kristi Noem Defends Executing 14-Month-Old Dog: 'It Was Not a ...

The South Dakota governor attempted to justify the killing of a 14-month dog during Sean Hannity's Fox News show

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem continues to fumble promoting her new memoir in which she details killing her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, by shooting it in a gravel pit.

Noem appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Wednesday to explain why she executed the dog after excerpts of the incident sparked backlash last week. Noem said she got Cricket, a wire-haired pointer just over a year old, to use for pheasant hunting.

“The truth is that this was a working dog and it was not a puppy, it was a dog that was extremely dangerous,” Noem said. “It had come to us from a family that had found her way too aggressive, we were her second chance.”

Noem detailed her experience with Cricket in her forthcoming memoir No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, which comes out next week. The Guardian first revealed details of the murder after receiving a review copy of the book, which recounted that Noem decided to put down the dog herself after it killed several chickens and allegedly tried to bite her.

“The day she was put down was the day she massacred livestock that were part of our neighbors, she attacked me, and it was a hard decision,” Noem told Hannity on Wednesday.

In the same excerpt, Noem recounted killing a goat that had chased her children around, as well as her daughter inquiring “hey, where’s Cricket?” upon returning home after her mother had shot the dog in the head.

On Hannity, Noem took shots at the media for publicizing the excerpt, saying they “leave out some or most of the facts of the story, they put the worst spin on it.” She added, “The reason it’s in the book is because this book is filled with tough, challenging decisions that I had to make throughout my life.”

Noem’s Hannity appearance was not the first time she tried to justify the story. Over the weekend, she posted on X/Twitter that South Dakota law allowed dogs that had attacked livestock to be put down, writing: “I decided what I did.”