Kristi Noem defends killing dog: ‘I’m tired of politicians pretending to be what they’re not’

The South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential hopeful Kristi Noem asked the American public to consider having to “make a choice between your children or a dangerous animal”, as she again defended her killing of a 14-month-old dog.

“I would ask everybody in the country to put themselves in that situation,” Noem told CBS’s Face the Nation about her decision to shoot the dog, named Cricket, after the animal ruined a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbor’s chickens.

“Because that’s what I faced, and I talked about it because what I’m tired of in this country is politicians who pretend to be something that they’re not.”

Asked why she did not surrender Cricket to an animal shelter before killing the dog, about 20 years ago, Noem repeated her prior claims that the creature was simply untrainable, had tried to bite her, and might have bitten others.

“I had put months and months of training into this dog – the dog had gone to other trainers as well,” Noem said. “When you put someone in a position where … they want to protect their family and protect children and other people from getting attacked, … that’s the choice I made.

“And … I didn’t ask anybody to take that responsibility for me.”

Noem’s latest justification for fatally shooting Cricket at her farm – an act chronicled in her upcoming memoir No Going Back and first reported by the Guardian – comes as fellow Republicans have all but written off her chances of being chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate in November’s presidential election.

A Guardian review of South Dakota state law found Noem may have committed misdemeanors by failing to control Cricket and by killing the animal on her own property. A spokesperson has not responded to inquiries on that point, which