cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/20120801
The Guardian obtained a copy of Noem’s soon-to-be released book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.” In it, she tells the story of the ill-fated Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer she was training for pheasant hunting.
On the way home from the hunting trip, Noem writes that she stopped to talk to a family. Cricket got out of Noem’s truck and attacked and killed some of the family’s chickens, then bit the governor.
“At that moment,” Noem writes, “I realized I had to put her down.” She led Cricket to a gravel pit and killed her.
She writes, according to the Guardian, that the tale was included to show her willingness to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it has to be done. But backlash was swift against the Republican governor, who just a month ago drew attention and criticism for posting an infomercial-like video about cosmetic dental surgery she received out-of-state.
My childhood dog killed the family of rabbits in our backyard the first spring we had him. Should we have put him down then and there since he was clearly a killer? What about ky husky that kills ever opossum that she comes across? Dogs are predators and it takes training to keep their killer instincts under control, and even then you can inly do so much.
I think it is a little different if it is your own pets vs someone else’s. Why should the rest of community trust the judgment and ability of someone to retrain their dog after something like that, and their assurances that it won’t happen again?
If there’s a very high chance keeping a dog is going to result in violence being done to the people around you and their pets, maybe it shouldn’t be an option in the first place. Breeds of dogs with very high prey drives, ownership of them should probably be more restricted than it is.
Has it bitten humans and was overly aggressive towards them too?