Governor Noem writes about her hunting dog

I don't know if it was justified or not, but one thing is for sure, she is plainly not as smart as I thought she was! I've been hearing more and more horror stories about wires and vdd dogs. Their popularity has grown 10-fold in the last few years because of the fuzzy face cuteness. My wife belongs to a face book gwp club. I had to get off because I lost my composure a couple times (under her name) with folks who were having behavior problems with them. You guys all know what can happen if a high energy/prey drive dog can't find an outlet. Back in the 80's I sold a beautiful little Vdd Female that was 2 years old. She was bonded to me closely. She wound up in a kennel for a year while the new owner had a new home built. 1st day in the new home she bit the owner's wife's face badly. Made me sick. I think she just lost it from not having a family, no outlet for her and to many strangers. I had a big male for sale that already didn't have any qualms about fighting other males. Had a doctor's secretary call me twice trying to buy him just because the doctor didn't have a wire in his kennel. Sold him to an older widower for half the money. 10 years later I ran into the old gentlemen at a Q.U. banquet. The dog had died a couple years earlier. He started telling me stories about him and before it was over with him, and I both were sobbing!! Also, people don't realize that a certain amount aggression was favored in this breed in their creation in Germany because they were bread to be a truly versatile including guard duty. Sorry for the long post, I got carried away..
 
BritChaser said:
The setting was rural SD with rural needs. My read is that the dog killing a neighbor's chicken and biting her were the reasons it was killed. I consider those to be sufficient reasons. One thing Noem made clear is that she very much came up in the rural life.
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I've got a lot of respect for your knowledge and views, but my opinion on this is different.
If I had been a member of a hunting party and a puppy was turned loose without proper training and exposure to the hunting environment by my best friend, I wouldn't have been upset at the puppy.
My quarrel would have with my friend.

Other thoughts/ some humorous --
1. Everyone knows that there are not any pen raised pheasants in SD available. Makes training a dog very difficult.
2. Never had a trained bird dog bite me. Young puppies yes, trained and socialized never.
3. Turning an uncontrollable puppy loose around loose chickens? That outcome was very predictable.
3. If the biting occurred while pulling a live or dead chicken away from said poorly trained puppy to me that's on the owner.
4. In my view if you bring your dog or a friend to a hunt with others then it's your responsibility that they have the proper training and experience to, most of all to hunt safely, and in a manner that fits into the group.

Last, I suspect the Governor could not find anyone in SD that would train her puppy.
 
First, I certainly don't condone what Governor Noem did. But we don't really know all the circumstances that let up to her deciding that the dog needed to be put down. While there were certainly more humane options to put a dog down this was twenty years ago and in years past in rural South Dakota, and rural America, it wasn't uncommon for a dog to be put down my shooting it. I couldn't do that and I'm sure very few on this site could. But what blows my mind is that a person in her position would write about it. Especially in this day and age. Hard to think she did it to gain any political advantage, but who knows. In my mind she has just eliminated herself from any future political positions and when her term is up she best head back to the farm.
 
20 years ago was 2004. I don't buy her actions as acceptable - she truly comes from a bunch of bumkins or she is the bumkin living amongst her clan.

I have been surrounded by farmers and ranchers all my life. I have seen a few older farmers "behave" like noted above, but while they were extremely successful ... they were also alcoholic. Not sure how many poor life decisions could be "blamed" on the bottle. Noem killed a young bird dog because it was poorly trained and she failed to control the animal around domestic chickens... There is zero excuse for her actions.

Certainly, there are still plenty of rural farmers and people that put animals down themselves. I actually have no issue with this if done humanely and for the right reasons. Typically these are animals that are very old or injured with little hope of recovery. I suppose some are dogs that have bitten people. I sometime wonder if it wouldn't be more "humane" to put a bird dog down in the field than in at a vet clinic, but that is a wonder not a to-do. I can tell you that most real men that do this - rarely talk about it.

As I noted above it is pretty clear Noem is a narcissist - you can all help decide which one:

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That said, I will state that always secure your dog first when you get back to the truck ... farm pickups and grain trucks (during harvest) do not slow down for dogs ....
 
She needs to take her handlers and her publicists to the gravel pit.

But for those who are caught up on how she says did it, let me say this. I've grown up farming and ranching my whole life and have seen or had to put down a lot of different types of animals of all sizes. And the only times there was an issue where it wasn't quick was at the end of a needle. Shooting an animal in that situation is never an easy thing to do, and that's why I say she didn't do it, but I do think it's the most effective and I believe any honest vet would probably agree.
 
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Dakotazeb said:
While there were certainly more humane options to put a dog down this was twenty years ago and in years past in rural South Dakota, and rural America, it wasn't uncommon for a dog to be put down my shooting it. I couldn't do that and I'm sure very few on this site could.
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I certainly couldn't shoot any dog, let alone MY dog, to put it down.

However, I know people that have and some that say they would. Some consider it the honest way to send your friend on. Supposedly you are ending your buddy's pain.

I also think that, even today, it's not that uncommon out in sparsely populated areas where vets are few and far apart.

I absolutely couldn't do it but I'm not going to judge those that do.

As for Noem... putting that out there on a national stage was world class stupid if her desire is a higher political national office. People that think chicken breast is suddenly born on a styrofoam plate wrapped in plastic are NOT going to understand what happens in the lightly populated rural areas.
 
Noem equals a narcissist tool.

Trump needs to look a bit to the north if he wants a competent running mate from the prairie region. Burgum and Hoeven would be great choices for a running mate. Alas, that probably is not want Trump is looking for.
 
As far as putting your dogs down. I have done every one of them. It's hard! I figure when it's time i have three choices. Let them die in pain. Carry them through an office filled with strangers, then have a semi stranger that they may not like do it. or underneath the shade tree while telling them how good they are.
 
One thing's for sure: Noem's caused a nationwide if not international brouhaha with this.
 
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Putting down a dog that is old/sick/hurt/uncontrollably aggressive is one thing. Doing it seemingly out of anger/frustration/embarrassment is another.

Think everyone on here who has own/trained/been around hunting dogs would say the most important thing a hunting dog needs before going on its first hunt is discipline. A disciplined dog might learn how to track or hold a bird a bit from other dogs , but an undisciplined dog is just going to ruin the hunt and not learn a thing. Especially when it's not a controlled training setting but a hunt with presumably plenty of other people and dogs, birds flushing, guns going off, etc. She set up the dog to fail, I mean it was all but guaranteed, and when it did she was annoyed and probably embarrassed and took it out on the dog.

The dog clearly had no discipline, was let lose and did what its instincts compel it to do. All of that was her fault, not the dog's.

So to me she comes off as a wannabe hunter/dog handler who has no clue what she's doing and got pissed off when it was made obvious to everyone else.

And then in telling the story she comes off as a wannabe tough guy but really just reveals herself to be an idiot too dumb to see the whole thing was her fault.

My 2 cents.
 
Patience and controlling the situation your dog is exposed to is also key. I would not be hunting my young dog with strangers and unknown dogs (if that is your thing) until they are ready for that experience. I would make sure my young bird dog is secured when near temptations or dangerous situations (chickens in the yard, roads, etc).

No clue is putting it nicely.
 
CBS Report ...
www.cbsnews.com

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem pilloried for writing about killing her dog: "This story is not landing"

Experts who work with hunting dogs like Gov. Kristin Noem's said she should have trained — not killed — her puppy, or found other options if the dog was out of control.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

Excerpts below are interesting ...

"I'm not sure which thing she did was stupider: The fact that she murdered the dog, or the fact that she was stupid enough to publish it in a book," said Joan Payton, of the German Wirehaired Pointer Club of America. The club itself described the breed as "high-energy," and said Noem was too impatient and her use of a shock collar for training was botched.

But South Dakota Democratic Senate Minority Leader Reynold Nesiba considered the disclosure more calculated than stupid. He said the story has circulated for years among lawmakers that Noem killed a dog in a "fit of anger" and that there were witnesses. He speculated that it was coming out now because Noem is being vetted as a candidate for vice president.

Plenty of other quotes on training, rescue, etc...
 
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charlottehunter said:
Putting down a dog that is old/sick/hurt/uncontrollably aggressive is one thing. Doing it seemingly out of anger/frustration/embarrassment is another.

Think everyone on here who has own/trained/been around hunting dogs would say the most important thing a hunting dog needs before going on its first hunt is discipline. A disciplined dog might learn how to track or hold a bird a bit from other dogs , but an undisciplined dog is just going to ruin the hunt and not learn a thing. Especially when it's not a controlled training setting but a hunt with presumably plenty of other people and dogs, birds flushing, guns going off, etc. She set up the dog to fail, I mean it was all but guaranteed, and when it did she was annoyed and probably embarrassed and took it out on the dog.

The dog clearly had no discipline, was let lose and did what its instincts compel it to do. All of that was her fault, not the dog's.

So to me she comes off as a wannabe hunter/dog handler who has no clue what she's doing and got pissed off when it was made obvious to everyone else.

And then in telling the story she comes off as a wannabe tough guy but really just reveals herself to be an idiot too dumb to see the whole thing was her fault.

My 2 cents.
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I bet that's what we all suspect but I hope we're wrong.
 
GetTothePoint said:
She needs to take her handlers and her publicists to the gravel pit.
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They might be stupid, but they're not THAT stupid. They must've had reason to believe the story was going to come out. They must have calculated that to reduce damage, the story needed to come out with HER spin on it, rather than somebody else's. So she/they hammered out a book real quick. Basically, she leaked it herself.
 
Initially, I thought this would have some damning repercussions on Governor Noem. As I see the comments in support of her, as well as the tribalistic nature of American politics, I don't think this will really have much of an effect on her career. I could be wrong. Hope I am, but there really seems to be no bottom to the character flaws that American politicians can weather.
 
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