Kacey Musgraves Blasts Kristi Noem Over Dog Shooting Story

Kacey Musgraves criticized Kristi Noem over her past admission that she shot a dog after the former Homeland Security secretary said she would choose country singer Ella Langley instead.

The exchange began when Democratic politician James Talarico, who is running for the US Senate, posted on X about attending Musgraves’s Dallas concert on Saturday.

After Talarico shared a photograph with the 38-year-old singer and thanked her for having him at the show, Noem, 54, reposted it on X. She used the post to take a swipe at Musgraves while backing fellow conservative Ken Paxton for the Senate.

‘I’ll take @ellalangleymsic over Kacey Musgraves any day. And if I’m choosin’ Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico,’ she wrote.

Musgraves responded with a pointed reference to Noem’s controversial account of shooting her puppy, writing: ‘I don’t think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it.’

The remark referred to Noem’s admission that she shot her 14-month-old puppy, Cricket, after deciding the dog was ‘untrainable.’

Noem defended the decision in 2024 after her confession triggered widespread backlash.

The Republican came under intense criticism after revealing the incident in her book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.

As criticism mounted, Noem said she ‘can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket.’

She added: ‘The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned. What I learned from my years of public service, especially leading South Dakota through COVID, is people are looking for leaders who are authentic, willing to learn from the past, and don’t shy away from tough challenges.’

‘My hope is anyone reading this book will have an understanding that I always work to make the best decisions I can for the people in my life.’

‘The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did. Whether running the ranch or in politics, I have never passed on my responsibilities to anyone else to handle. Even if it’s hard and painful.

‘I followed the law and was being a responsible parent, dog owner, and neighbor. As I explained in the book, it wasn’t easy. But often the easy way isn’t the right way.’

Noem said she included the story in her memoir to demonstrate her willingness to take on anything ‘difficult, messy and ugly’ when she believes it must be done.

The Republican wrote that she took Cricket on a hunting trip with older dogs in hopes of calming down the wild puppy. Instead, Cricket chased the pheasants while ‘having the time of her life.’

Noem wrote that on the way home from the hunting trip, when she stopped to talk to a family, Cricket got out of her truck and attacked and killed some of the family’s chickens, and then bit the governor.

Noem apologized profusely, wrote the distraught family a check for the deceased chickens, and helped them dispose of the carcasses, she writes. She wrote that Cricket ‘was the picture of joy’ as all that unfolded.

‘I hated that dog,’ Noem wrote, deeming her ‘untrainable.’

‘At that moment,’ she said, ‘I realized I had to put her down.’

Noem then recalled leading Cricket to a gravel pit and shooting her dead.

That wasn’t all. Noem wrote that her family also owned a ‘nasty and mean’ male goat that smelled bad and liked to chase her kids, so she decided to go ahead and kill the goat, too.

She wrote that the goat survived the first shot, so she went back to the truck, got another shell, then shot him again, killing him.

Noem previously took to social media to defend herself.

‘We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,’ she said on X.

‘Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.’

Noem has has also made headlines in recent weeks after it was revealed in September that she filed for divorce from her husband Bryon, just months after Our News Outlet exposed his crossdressing online porn fetish. 

Court documents submitted on April 6 cite ‘irreconcilable differences’ as the grounds for the split. 

Bryon’s cross-dressing fetish and explicit exchanges with online porn models were exposed in March, nearly 34 years after the couple married in 1992. 

Meanwhile, country superstar Langley has recently come under fire after her old hunting photos resurfaced online.

The Choosin’ Texas hitmaker, 27, has posted a series of images to her own social media accounts of her various kills over the years, which were slammed as ‘awful’ and ‘disgusting’ by fans.