Thank you. So hiccup on this end of the interface.
I’m also a city boy, but I can imagine a situation where you’ve got several geriatric horses who are near the end, and you need to call a vet to come in and euthanize the horse then dispose of the corpse, it would make sense to have them do several at once, even if there were still a few more months left in some of them, instead of having the vet make separate trips for each horse.
Obviously, this wouldn’t apply if Noem was using the same “shotgun and gravel pit” strategy that she used on her dog and goat.
Also Mexican - out here in California goat birria is popping up more and more on menus, with the occasional goat taco as well. IME trying tacos a couple times, like mutton it is slightly tricky to get right for American palates like mine. One time it was pretty damn good, the other it was pretty damn rank.
I’m having flashbacks to No Country for Old Men.
Yes, I’m seeing it more and more, too. A friend once offered to get some birria for me his mom had prepared when he’d gone home to the El Centro area, but I demurred. I’m curious now.
“I’m so desperate to be Trump’s running mate I sacrificed a goat to him.”
“Poorly, in keeping with our shared political philosophy: ‘the cruelty is the point.’”
A young lady – daughter of a friend – and her Ethiopian boyfriend stayed with us for a while; they tended to cook their own meals. I don’t know what he did with his goat but it smelled pretty damn rank.
Personal takeaways:
- No particular objection to putting down a working animal that’s a threat to the other animals, and where interacting with other animals is necessary for it to do its job.
- A hunting dog could be a working animal - but it could also be a pet. For the sake of giving her the best possible opportunity to come out clean on this, we should consider it as having been a clear working animal.
- A trained, working hunting dog should be expected to murder any birds that it’s hanging out with. It’s not a livestock guardian dog it’s a trained bird murder dog. Maybe some dogs are smart enough to be safe at home, with the livestock, but - if its not - then it makes more sense to keep it separately. If you don’t have space to do that, then you should sell it as a hunting dog with a clear demonstration of the instinct to hunt, to someone that has the setup to keep their hunting animals away from the ranch’s prey animals.
- If you have a working animal, then it’s a part of the farm and the family business. Unilaterally hauling off one of your hundreds or thousands of dollars value animals into a ditch and murdering it, when it frustrates you, seems like something that may have warranted a discussion with her husband (not because he’s “her husband”, but because he’s half owner - I presume - of their business). Again, you could probably sell it for money to someone who would want a dog with the instinct to hunt and kill birds. It’s a hunting dog.
- It’s 2024. Taking it out back and shooting it seems like a strange (and unlikely) methodology. Up close and its awkward to correctly aim, unless you’ve gotten the animal to sleep. Dogs don’t stand like a statue, they generally move around and that’s hard to deal with up close. From further away, you’re liable to miss. There’s really no reason to choose this method unless you just want to murder the thing and can’t wait - which doesn’t imply a cool and collected mentality. Why not have it put down by injection or something if you don’t think you can sell it? That’s just a lot more practical, if you have any concern about unnecessary suffering - which you should.
- Much the same for the billy goat. The thing is worth money, why would you destroy it? Why would you do that unilaterally? Why are you doing that, if the behavior that you’re getting is what you would expect from such an animal?
Granted that Mike Pence is not nearly as sympathetic as a puppy, but Trump & his supporters seem just fine with erecting a gallows outside the Capitol and threatening to execute him.
Trump nearly illegally seized power in a violent coup on Jan 6th and is still polling at 40%.
Greg Abbott put razor-edged barriers in the Rio Grande to kill immigrants entering the country, and conservatives are hollering for more of it.
Y’all may want to take a tiny step back and ask if DIY pet euthanasia is really the political dream-killer you think it is.
It’s not a secret dog whistle at all. MAGA are cruel bastards and they love this shit, and that’s why their politicians act that way. They do it because it works. We all know this (or should know it) because the pattern has played out too many times to count. Not with puppies, granted, but with plenty worse things.
I don’t know how anyone on earth could have watched the past 8 years of Trump and believe that someone euthanizing a puppy with a gun is any kind of dealbreaker for MAGA. It must be because because puppy-killing crosses a particular line for you, or it’s a media literacy issue, or some combination of the two.
You shouldn’t assume that MAGA are like you! They are not good people!
I disagree with this. You are painting a wide brush over hunting dogs.
Even a well trained hunting dog should have been trained not to attack domestic fowl.
Some alert the hunter to the prey (Pointers). Some retrieve the prey (Labradors, Weimeraners). Some hunt down the prey (Daschunds, Jack Russels). Some are set on the prey (bull terriers et al)
My beloved dogs are in the first and second category, but my ex-wife and I trained them to be there, and seeing as we do not hunt, the “prey” is a tennis ball or frisbee.
If you choose to have a “hunting dog”, in my opinion, you need to train it to know when it is appropriate.
And - as this is the pit - fucking jesus on a fucking crucifix, why would you want to have your dogs maul an animal to death? Would not your ego be better stroked by your rifle?
I grant that I am not an expert, I’m just going on what I’ve heard from listening to the Farm Dog podcast. They generally advise keeping it simple for the dogs. Some are geniuses that can do anything. A lot of them aren’t and you’re pushing your luck to specialize them for one thing, and expect them to do other things - and opposite things - well. That said, you might be reading “expect” differently than I intended it.
I don’t mean that the most likely outcome is that your hunting dog will murder birds; I mean that your default position should be that the dog has a much higher risk of killing the birds than any other dog that wasn’t specifically bred for hunting and trained to hunt; and it would generally be wise to treat it in such a way, minus any clear evidence that, that particular animal is smart enough to consistently do it right.
Like, there’s no reason to leave your wallet, with a $100 bill nudging itself out the side, in the middle of the sidewalk and abandon it. Maybe the most likely outcome, under scientific testing, is that you’ll get your wallet back, money soundly in place. It’s still unwise to act as though that’s a given. You should act as though the money will go missing, and keep your wallet on your person, and keep the bills hidden. You should act with the expectation that your money would be stolen.
Bottom line seems to me to know your dog (which most owners do).
If Noem’s puppy was a spaz and aggressive it is on her to control it. A leash would do the trick. Cheap and easy. (Properly training the dog is another thing but Noem doesn’t seem the sort to put in that effort so that’s a big no reason on VP for me…one of many.)
I’d have to give the podcast another listen but I feel like I recall them saying something like about 18 months or 2 years is about when you should have a sense for whether your dog is going to be able to hack it in the profession that it was bound for.
Likewise, I don’t recall the exact numbers but I think they were saying that something like 15% won’t make it and - that being a small enough number - usually, you would probably just find a new home for it as a pet or in a situation that works for the dog better than your ranch (one with more fences, one that’s larger, one that doesn’t have visitors, etc.)
I’m not as certain this is the career killer some think. She may survive this politically. But she may not. Trump likely would.
Where I push back is on the comments that this is a net positive in MAGA world. Yes, cruelty is a selling point. Yes, it’s a depraved, sadistic movement. But here’s what I think people are overlooking: People really like dogs. MAGA people included. You can kill brown people with razor wire in a river, but the dog better live in the movie for many, many people. They want their leaders to hurt the people they hate. Not dogs!
I’m sure there is a subset of the right that will excuse it, and perhaps genuinely find it inoffensive. But I’d speculate that there is not a large cohort that doesn’t find this disgusting. That includes farmers, ranchers, Republicans, Democrats.
60% of American households have pets, and most of those pets are dogs. Greater than 90% of pet owners consider their pets part of the family. People love dogs. So, whatever the consequences of this admission may be, I’m very confident that it’s not a winning political strategy to shoot a puppy in the face with a shotgun. It’s an act that can perhaps be survived politically. But shooting the family dog is not endearing, not anywhere, not to any significant extent.
I basically agree with your whole post. But for MAGAts, (hardcore ones) it does not matter if it’s not endearing. It matters if it pwns the libs. It makes them glad because it’s cruel. This is who they are.
Thankfully, I think it’s just the hardcore. Say about 30% of the electorate, 70% of current Republicans.
But they want the libs to weep and gnash their teeth over things that only libs love; don’t shit on stuff they love.
Loving dogs doesn’t belong to the libs. It belongs to everybody. That’s my point. Yes, the cruelty is the point—cruelty to the people they hate! Not to puppies.
Recounting the killing story is bad enough, but to include that throat-catching “where’s Cricket?” scene is fucked up. C word.
I wonder if she has anything to say about all this.
“Where’s Cricket?”