Kristi Noem is not unique.
It’s been interesting to see the webizens erupt over Kristi Noem shooting a dog she didn’t think was performing the way it should. I’m sure, for her, it was just some kind of confession to prove how tough she is. The ones who care erupted, the ones who were like, “meh, it’s just a dog” have kept themselves to themselves. But if you look around you can see just how horrible so many dog owners really are.
First, my mother’s people were country folk. They treated their animals as workers and food with the exception of the cats my mother had from a very young age. Her brother was a hunter with a home full of trophies. So I get, all too well, that mindset and it’s not one that I share, at all.
Kristi Noem said her 14-month old German wirehaired pointer, Cricket, made a move to bite her. I had a good friend who had a dog that did bite a family member and the family, after much soul searching, had the dog killed. Didn’t try to rehome it, didn’t try to put it through training, just decided the animal was dangerous and needed to be destroyed. So this sort of thing that Noem did is – sorry to tell you folks – NORMAL.
PETA’s statement on the subject: “Most Americans love their dogs and we suspect that they’ll consider Gov. Noem a psychotic loony for letting this rambunctious puppy loose on chickens and then punishing her by deciding to personally blow her brains out rather than attempting to train her or find a more responsible guardian who could provide her with a proper home.”
I’m really not so sure about that first sentence… that most Americans love their dogs. Guess it depends on how you define love.
Houston has to be one of the most dog friendly cities in the USA. Dogs are welcomed almost everywhere and that has provided me with the opportunity to observe how people treat their animals. And I’m mostly appalled.
One of the reasons I’m writing this is because I just watched a guy beat the shit out of his dog. The guy sees me at the window watching and doesn’t care one bit. Yesterday, as I was walking my companion, I saw what I refer to as a watered down pit bull in a kennel, on a balcony in the sun on an 85°F day. Most of the other people here in the complex that do that to their dogs (leave them outside on their balcony on hot days) at least don’t have them in a small kennel.
All too often I hear the little dog across the way barking all night long; I hear it at 6pm, at 2am, at 4am, at 8am which is around the time the pup’s human comes home whereupon she lets it run out to do it’s business while she’s scrolling on her phone (never picks up the poop – hardly anyone here or anywhere ever does), and then back inside the little pooch goes no doubt thrilled his human is finally back with him – our courtyard blissfully quiet once more. These events happened here in just the past two days. My observations from my three years in Houston could fill a book and break my heart in the telling.
Long ago I came to the conclusion that most people have no business owning dogs but is their half-assed commitment to or their abuse of their dog better than leaving a dog in a shelter? How much of what they do is actually a type of abuse? Where is the outrage for the everyday offenses against hundreds of thousands of dogs?
And who am I to judge anyone? I don’t know what goes on behind their closed door. Perhaps all is not what it seems….
All I know is that most people don’t deserve the love and devotion they get from their canine companion. And it’s a damn shame.
