Nature has nothing to do with shooting a puppy just because you don't like it.

Weird timing- a friend of mine has been bottle feeding an abandoned kitten that just died. Her thought was - guess the mom knew.

Noem does not have to worry about resource management.

---

------------------------------
The first time man split the atom was when the atom tried to hold Jens Voigt's wheel, but cracked.

As something of a tree hugger, it never occurred to me that nature is suppose to be a nice place that isn't overwhelming operating under the cold, feelingless pressure of natural selection largely absent anything that would pass for human morality.

That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if for much if not most of human history abandoning sick/disabled human infants was also routine and considered the "right" thing to do. Pretty sure we have plenty of evidence of that even in historical times.

Agree. People have an idealized "Disney" tinted view of nature that's in stark contrast with reality, and then they vote based on those unrealistic views.

I grew up in Montana and understand nature. Circle of life and all. I’m pretty comfortable making cold & calculated life and death decisions and deciding when to cut losses.

I hope you get out and meet more tree huggers because they are a fun outdoorsy crew, in my experience. The ones who go outside for adventures don’t stay naive for long, and I’m certain you will find common ground with them so long as you don’t act like a whiny city kid.

Kristi Noem is a big girl and can defend her actions, if they are defensible. Don’t worry about her.

AutomaticJack wrote:

but it made me think about Kristie Neom and her book.

Noem's book doesn't make me think about the hard realities of nature or farm life.

It makes me think about social media outrage-farming and career-climbing. Click generation to drive book sales. These are very much modern skills. She's pretty good at them, but maybe flew a little too close to the sun on this one. Even hardened ranchers who put down animals daily may not be down with the weird social media titillating description of putting down a problematic dog with the emotions of hatred.

I have never met a tree hugger who doubted that nature can be cruel. They usually argue that humans should not be needlessly cruel.

The problem is that the line of "needlessly cruel" is drawn in such a way that many common acts are deemed unacceptable.

Yeah, I'm giving AutomaticJack the benefit of the doubt that he meant something more like "city slicker" - someone 3 degrees removed from direct contact with nature. "Tree huggers" usually enjoy direct contact with nature.

I'm imagining the opening scene of Yellowstone where the Costner character shoots an injured horse in the head.

What the Costner charactner didn't do was whip out a phone and start typing in, "Had to put down an injured horse on the side of the road!! Shot it in the head in a ditch! Can you hear the liberal media gasping!? Link to my book below."

I am somewhat surprised that someone in the suburbs had a pregnant cat. Did people stop following Bob Barker’s advice when he passed?

This.

A million times this.



But, gotta say, good for Ms Noem, she and her actions have a lot of passionate defenders here.

---

Advanced Aero TopTube Storage for Road, Gravel, & Tri...ZeroSlip & Direct-mount, made in the USA.
DarkSpeedWorks.com.....Reviews.....Insta.....Facebook
--

We're talking about shooting an untrained puppy. Is that a common act that is inappropriately deemed unacceptable? Seriously?

That is the nature of social debate. You and I don't agree on certain examples of what should be acceptable in terms of alleged cruelty. We can disagree about Kristi Noem or rodeos. What you might see as common acts that are perfectly fine, others might see as common acts that are not ok.

The mere fact that these acts are "common" does not mean they are ok. Societies evolve and what was once common is later seen as abhorrent. Not saying that will happen with any specific issue; just saying that the fact that something is common today is not a defense to its morality.

My dad has been a farmer for his 80+ years. I've seen him cry when he had to put a cow down. I don't think it's normal to put a pet down and brag about it.

Except when talking about the harshness of nature, his example is domestic cats, with his advice being to talk to a vet. All in defense of a puppy killer.

If you ever want to be reminded of the cruelty of nature, check out the IG account Nature Is Metal.

Just last week there was a pack of coyote's taking out a dog on the street in front of a house.

An animal that's killing/harassing/attacking livestock and biting at/acting aggressive towards its owner? Yeah, I wouldn't say that's too uncommon.

Many a ranch dog has made it's final mistake when it bites a kid.

Did you even read the story. At 14 month old dog, untrained. Having the time of his life running around, but in doing so, ruined a pheasant hunt. She hated the dog. Then, on the way home, it got out (her fault) and killed a chicken. And then bit her. Probably because she doesn't know how to handle dogs.

Have you ever had dogs? Have you ever been bitten by a dog? Was your first response to put the thing down? Are you defending Noem?

The problem with this is there's a vast asymmetry in terms of understanding. You and I may have different opinions on a lot of topics related to an environment and culture which you have nearly zero understanding. If you were to exist in that environment/culture for a while, and have to face its realities, then your opinion might change, or at least it would then be based on actual understanding instead of ignorance.

"Ignorance" isn't used to be offensive in this case, but in its neutral definition.

I follow that account. Cruelty isn't a word I would use in most instances. Humans do cruelty, animals rarely do.

A male lion or gorilla that takes over a pride/harem and proceeds to kill all the young is not being cruel, any more than a lion taking down a zebra is being cruel.

I have dogs, and have had many dogs. I've been around world class dog trainers whose dogs you've seen in movies and commercials. My dogs are extremely well trained.

Maybe she doesn't know how to handle a dog. Maybe she's extremely experienced with these dogs and this one was just untrainable? Maybe it was the last straw in a long list of problems? Maybe it was an emotional response of frustration?

The story is being presented to create as much outrage as possible. Your emotions are being manipulated to create this outrage. Maybe what Noem did was unreasonable, maybe it's media and outrage based hysteria to sell news/clicks. I wasn't there, and you weren't either. I'm offering her some benefit of the doubt.

I do know that putting a dog down because of behavior can be a reasonable response and that doing so with a bullet isn't necessarily cruel nor unusual.

Though I hope it was like an unattended Ring cam or something vs. someone just watching someone's pet dog get shredded without intervening. Usually coyotes will scatter easily. I've come across them at a carcass trail running pre-dawn (because I'm a tree hugger), and they want *nothing* to do with me.

I looked like a Ring cam or some such thing.

I counted 4 dead opossums on my ride this weekend, all by car.

I seriously doubt that shooting a puppy and a goat in a gravel pit in front of a construction crew in a fit of anger is considered ok in rural areas. But if it is, I have no hesitation in saying it's still wrong. If you think there is some detail of the mechanics of running a ranch that I don't get, and would be relevant to this issue, I am happy to listen.

First, as someone pointed out above, I should have used "city-slicker" instead of tree-huger. There is a marked distinction between the 2. The biggest difference being city-slickers refer to Rockland County (NY) as upstate.

I have owned dogs my entire life, and a farm animal is much different than Cooper, my running partner, who is smarter than my wife at times and lives a very comfortable indoor life. I did read the account, quoted from her book, and what you are describing is accurate, but without context. A farm animal has to follow certain criteria or they will either be sold/given away, or put down. At 14 months this dog was no longer an "untrained puppy" and when it attacked livestock and then bit its owner/handler it was done. Unless you have been there/done that you shouldn't judge.

Would I have done the same thing under similar circumstances? Probably, because there are some problems. Once a dog has tasted fresh blood (made a kill) there is no way you can be sure it won't do it again. Once an animal has turned on a human you can't, in good faith, give it away. If it bites again and they can prove you knew it did it before there are going to be legal issues.

Many many years ago I took my soon to be wife (I had not proposed yet) home to meet my family. She had never been out of the city, except for vacations and to visit a distant relative's farm (13 acres, smaller than my mother's vegetable garden). My grand mother insisted that we have a big dinner with the entire family present. My grandmother was a very nice old lady, but she had never been off the farm and did not understand why I had left, and certainly did not understand the girl I had brought home. She was trying to get to know my girlfriend the best she could, and asked if she could help prepare the chicken. My wife jumped at the chance to get involved, since she had been ignored by the women in the kitchen. I did not notice her leaving, and it was my grandfather who asked me if I knew what my wife was doing. By the time I got to the chicken yard my grandmother had already grabbed the chicken, snapped its neck it one smooth twist, and was hanging it up to bleed out.

My wife did not touch her chicken during the meal, and she was still traumatized on the drive back to NY.

---

"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Speaking of tough old birds, my grandmother wrung the neck of a rooster that menaced my mom and her siblings when they were wee kids. My mom said they ate the tough old rooster, and my mom was very impressed/ frightened by that killing. My grandmother also caught a crow (or hawk?) flying out of the chicken coop, and my grandmother impaled it on a nail above the coop doorway. She was tough!

My grandmother was a homesteader. She was not soft. She became kind of sweet when she was really old. She was very gentle to my kids. I have felt sadness when I learn details about her life, like she was molested in her youth. She had an hysterectomy and all her teeth removed when she had her last baby. So she returned to the ranch with her newborn, a hysterectomy, and no teeth. She cooked on a wood-burning stove at that time. Can you imagine? There is no reason to romanticize the brutality of life. We can do better. And we should want to do better.

Edited: I cleaned up my speech for you.

You assumed she wrote about the dog for the outrage-fueled publicity?

I assumed she's a terrible person who thought that writing about killing her dog would be interpreted by her readers the same way she interprets it: a normal day living on a farm. Not callous unnecessary cruelty which is what I see.

Talk about emotions. You are helpless. Simply because you won’t read her account of what happened. The only reason you are offering some benefit of doubt is because you want to be right. But you are quite misguided here. Again, it’s beyond weird at this point that you refuse to believe what she is telling you.

A sugar coated life where we are mostly insulated from the natural world and dependent upon corporate supply chains to provide for our basic needs isn't "better" IMO. Removing the false sugar coating isn't the same thing as romanticizing brutality.

Your opinion is noted. Move on.

You my friend are wrong, time for you to move on.

Maybe not that the initial writing, but clearly her actions after.

The Guardian broke the news about the excerpt. She jumped on it, and posted a Tweet that linked to the Guardian article, and added she'd recently down three of her horses (unclear why 3 in one day). Followed by a "If you want more stories that'll leave the media gasping, pre-order my book <link to her book>"

That is pretty clearly viral outrage farming to me. She identified animal euthanasia could go viral, so poured more fuel to help it along. Drumming up outrage and trying to establish bonafides as firearm user and someone who understands rural life. (which maybe she does, but in this sense she's clearly working hard to advertise it for political and financial benefit)

I think the more savvy MAGA types (of which I think she is one) see the "liberal media" more as allies than enemies.

When my dad was a young teenager, my grandfather took him and two of his brothers, and had all of their teeth pulled and given dentures. My dad said that they weren't having dental issues and doesn't know why he did it. Can you imagine being a teenager in high school and having dentures?

What is the false sugar coating? Violence is not the first option. We resort to killing only after all the alternatives have been deemed insufficient. That’s the cold calculation.

What purpose does Kristi’s story serve? She didn’t share her cold calculation. She didn’t talk about her analysis. We want thinkers who are unafraid of kindness. We want thinkers who understand the necessity to kill sometimes.

When I suffered a miscarriage, my mother-in-law told me that the miscarriage was nature’s way to weed out a weak or defective embryo. That’s a cold way to look at it. And it’s true. I also realized that my body had ramped up in anticipation of my new baby. My emotions had formed an attachment to the baby. I knew there was a significant emotional component.

Although you might like to pretend that Americans are soft and can’t handle the harsh realities of life, we can. And we do. We’re not guilty of sugar coating things.

That’s so bad! There must have been a denture movement that swept the county or something.

Meanwhile, my 90 year old father-in-law never brushed his teeth until he entered the naval academy! He still has good teeth! He grew up on a dairy farm—lucky guy.

We had a dog kill a chicken. Successfully rehomed with an owner of same breed of dog, dog has lived an amazing life since. We kept up with the adopter on socials and the pictures have been awesome.

So no, don't pretend there's other people who don't get it and toss around the cheapest of argumentative fallacies.

So yeah, I'll judge. Harshly.

The culinary arts and 5 star restaurants really remove the notion of what we are doing, tearing through the flesh of an animal with our teeth. I'm from the Midwest and have been on farms, worked on farms, etc. I have no disillusionment as to the tough tasks that most turn a blind eye toward.

However, most here see the problem with the contempt Noem displayed. Killing an animal that is not an act of self defense should not be impassioned. She wrote in her own words that was not the case, she was angry at the animal. Then she angrily killed the goat too right after for being old and smelly, which sounded akin to her bloodlust not being satisfied. There have been police working dog failures that simply result in the dog not being a working dog. The cops dont take it out back and shoot it. While many keep bringing up the aspect of the dog bit the owner, that was not part of her original message, it was a rebuttal after the fact of being called out for her glee. Seems an important oversight in her original tale, which questions if that was even true. The original story was a dog she hated for being happy and wanting to play vs helping her hunt. And it killed some chickens. I just had some killed chicken for lunch. Dog is supposed to help her track and kill birds but then it kills some birds (that it is not supposed to protect) and that is surprising?

End result is politicians get closely graded on every aspect of their words. Hers did not come off as an experienced ranch hand but a childish person frothing at the mouth and bragging. There were plenty of completely acceptable ways for her to show she did the hard task of putting down an animal. All she had to do was say it respectfully. Imagine a Jailer that bragged about pulling the switch or depressing the syringe on someone sentenced to death.

ETA: outside the farm life we kill moles for fucking up our pretty lawns, and kill rabbits for eating our garden plants. I even had a family member brag about killing rabbits that were eating their plant. They played it as getting those plant eating bastards. Which I replied fuck your plants. It wasn't the action but the glee that I called out. When animals kill humans that FAFO we still hunt down the animal and kill it.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this.

Okay.

I’m comfortable disagreeing with you. :)

Likewise. I take it as a positive sign.

When Curly shoots Norman's mother in City Slickers

"She was dyin'"

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Billy Crystal took Norman home as a pet. And wtf Jake Gyllenhaal played the young son?

Looks like Norman's first role was being born on camera but he had quite the career after in movies. I couldn't find his imdb for list of roles. Did find this gem of a quote:

Quote:

Glen : There is something wrong with your cow. I reach under there and I'm pulling, tugging, tugging, pulling, nothing, not a drop.

Mitch : The cow's name is Norman. You were pulling on his dick.

Glen : I'm gonna go wash up.

Norm's career after:

So now quoting someone's words is manipulation for outrage.

Your impulse to defend the indefensible is taking you down some very weird paths.

Try this. That was wrong. She should not have done that.

---

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

As I suspected: City Slickers > Yellowstone

Thanks for playing along!!!

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

That last sentence in farm/ranch life is so common sense that it's hardly worth a mention. The SD governor made mention for a reason; didn't go over as she thought it would; I'd say.
I am a absolute dog nut. I didn't see that dog, 14 months isn't a puppy anymore. I trust she had an investment in the dog, so, shooting it wasn't likely her most attractive option. Truly aggressive dogs can't be trusted or trained to be tamed. Just the way it is. Severe injury or death of a child is not worth the risk.

---

I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

Her "Meth. We're on it." campaign wasn't well thought-out either.

yeah, that's an understatement.
How this got by people w/half a brain - I'll never understand. Yikes.
Definitely not the sharpest knives in the cutlery drawer.

---

I saw this on a white board in a window box at my daughters middle school...
List of what life owes you:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________

Jack, shouldn't this be titled ''Farm Boys in the Big Suburbs''?

I don't care if Kristie Noame killed her dog, but bragging about it just seems so Republican!

---

---------------------------
''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

I'll bet that Governor of South Dakota had no idea that there were so many ways to misspell her name

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Yep, Long Island is not the big city, unless you grew or still live somewhere that has one Elementary, Middle, and High School for the entire county, and you only had 53 graduate with you. Then Nassau and Western Suffolk counties are overwhelming.

An update: The kitten died yesterday afternoon at the vet's. The neighbor told me last night and said it was amazing I knew that. I told her all I did was pay attention to the mother, the fact that she knew is what is amazing.

---

"...the street finds its own uses for things"

haha, incredible.

Cool. Now explain the goat.

The reality is that she shot both because they were inconvenient.

We will name the goat Veep. Since her chances of being VP are as dead as the goat and dog.

---

I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

.

Are you really attacking someone that shot a goat, on a farm/ranch? Really?

I guess it is good that you buy your produce and meat from the grocery store when no animals or plants are harmed.

---

"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I thought face shooting was a job requirement for GOP VP, at least it wasn't one of her friends.

I think Sweeney nailed it, it isn't so much that she put down an animal, it's more the that she feels the need to brag about it to show us how tough she is.