Happiness is a Warm Puppy. Not Killing One.
Moe ‘Kingfish’ Katz with a nod to Charles Schulz
When I returned home after five days away at the New Bedford Film Festival it was into the loving paws of my dog Moe. With his arms wrapped around my shoulders in a warm embrace, it was hard to tell who missed who more.
Neither of us wanted to let go.
That, Governor Noem, is how you treat a dog.
Just days later, when Moe was trailing me like a bodyguard, not letting me out of his sightline, and I could not complete a task without sneaking off to snuggle with him, the public heard the disgusting news about South Dakota Kristi Noem.
In her upcoming book, she proudly revealed that she shot and killed her puppy, named Cricket. The canine, a 14-month-old wire-haired pointer puppy, is noted by Noem to have an “aggressive personality.”
That she would kill a dog simply because it was not responding to training is unforgivable. That she would write about it in a book is astonishing.
Sometimes I need to keep the news away from Moe.
This woman who is on the shortlist for running mate with Trump himself a notorious hater of dogs, reflected on previously owning a female hunting dog Cricket.
“I hated that dog,” Noem says. She calls Cricket “untrainable” and claims she was “less than worthless as a hunting dog.” Noem also claims that Cricket was “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” according to The Guardian.
It was then, she writes, that she brought the dog to a gravel pit and shot and killed the puppy, startling a local construction crew.
My first week with Moe
When I first got my rescue Lab from Louisana I prepared for Hurricane Moe.
I assumed a young rescue dog who had had so many disruptions in his young life might have behavioral problems adjusting. I prepared for items being chewed, incessant crying and barking, and creating general chaos. I had several trainers on speed dial just in case .
But being Moe, he was an angel.
However, if he had presented challenges never once did I think to get rid of him or think “I need to shoot him in a gravel pit.”
A decent human never gives up on a dog. It takes time, patience, and love but the reward is incalculable.
She has shown us who she is. She is not human.
She is unworthy of ever having the love of a dog.