Dogs

The biggest question in politics right now has to be: why is Kristi Noem doing this to herself? Let's do a quick recap. The South Dakota governor is your classic Tea Party-era politician, running for Congress in 2010 and beating an incumbent Democrat. When she arrived in Washington, she was a reliable Republican vote for the anti-Obama House majority — anti-tax, pro-Keystone, anti-abortion, pro-balanced budget, drill baby drill. Her congressional career was pretty unremarkable. She decided after winning reelection in 2016 to run for governor — and won handily despite doing it in a tougher year for Republicans across the board. Winning the governorship elevated Noem's national profile and the quick follow-on of the Covid pandemic raised her even higher.

Kristi Noem has been taking heat for packing heat on her dog. In an excerpt from her upcoming book, the South Dakota governor admitted to shooting her family’s wire-haired pointer, Cricket. After ruining a peasant hunt and killing her neighbor's chickens, Noem took the pooch out back and sent her to a gravely grave. The news has sent shockwaves across the country — all but tanking Noem's hopes of "softening" Trump's image as a female VP pick — but Noem is far from the first politician to be embroiled in a canine scandal. Barack Obama Hot dogs aren’t the only dogs Obama enjoys. Before becoming the proud parent of his pet Bo, Obama admitted to eating dogs in Indonesia with his stepfather Lolo Soetoro.

As war rages in Gaza and Ukraine, Joe Biden is preoccupied with another bloody battle, in the White House — between his new German Shepherd, Commander, and Secret Service personnel.  Cockburn first reported Commander was roaming the West Wing looking for flesh in July. Since then, under the loving care of Joe and Jill, the canine’s bloodlust has intensified. He has bitten Secret Service agents in at least twenty-four incidents, according to recent documents obtained by a Freedom of Information request.  “They’ve been heartbroken over this,” a White House official said. “They’ve apologized to those who have been bitten, and taken flowers to some. They feel awful.

Another day, another Biden family member making an embarrassing faux pas. This time, it's Commander Biden, the less-than-faithful German Shepherd that roams the White House halls looking for flesh. Recent reports tell of the hound attacking multiple people indiscriminately, making no distinction between Secret Service and civilian White House staff. The MailOnline even snapped the feral beast as he nipped White House gardener Dale Haney. Some might look to lay blame on Commander, but Cockburn wants to you stop and take stock of the situation. As many of Cockburn's colleagues have reminded, there are no bad dogs. There are only bad dog owners. And Commander follows in the footsteps of the previous Biden Alsatian, Major, who was also rehomed after biting staff.

Cockburn came across this interesting little tidbit while he was stirring his first apéritif of the early afternoon: a Vox preview of Christopher Whipple’s forthcoming book, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House, reports that President Biden is distrustful of his Secret Service team and believes the agency fabricated a story about Biden’s German Shepherd, Major, biting an agent. Major Biden and fellow White House German Shepherd, Champ, were removed to Delaware for a while following the alleged incident. Vox reports how in the book, “Whipple details how Biden was showing a friend around the White House and pointed to the spot where Major allegedly bit a member of Biden’s security team. ‘Look, the Secret Service are never up here.

'Can We Drop a Dog Walker for Her Political Opinions?' asks a letter-writer to this week’s edition of the New York Times’s ethicist column. The writer laments that they have hired a 'reliable, responsible, and kind' person to walk the family dog. The problem? Beneath the visage of humanity, the dog walker is actually a monstrous Trump voter. Rather than stop and ponder the implications of a Trump voter being, in fact, a rather decent human being, the writer gets right to the meat of the matter: Should they fire the dog walker immediately? Kwame Anthony Appiah, the NYT’s ethicist, was relatively measured in his response. 'A manager who penalizes a regular employee for her political views is exercising workplace tyranny,' Kwame writes.

We don't deserve dogs. The internet has spoken — and the consensus is unanimous. Of course, we have them anyway. At last count the United States was home to 90 million dogs, sometimes multiple dogs per household. We love them like family. Dogs are our best friends and national obsession. Dogs are not just dogs, but dogues, doggos, puppers. Somewhere between the advent of the @Dog_Rates Twitter account (where every dog scores at least 11 points out of a possible 10), the rise of subscription boxes full of gourmet freeze-dried beef spleen and a 1,000 percent increase in the term ‘pet parents’, dogs came to represent the living embodiment of all that is good and pure.

I’ve had my Blue Heeler Murray since he was six weeks old. The breeder said he was 10 weeks, but I think she was just eager to get rid of him. I use the term ‘breeder’ pretty generously. Murray was born on a working farm that didn’t heed the closing plea of every episode of The Price Is Right. My significant other was first to arrive and literally had the pick of the litter. Six pups were playing sweetly with mom. One was off by himself headbutting a tree trying to shake loose a squirrel. That’s Murray. Blue Heelers are working dogs bred to herd cattle. If I am walking on the farm on any sort of path, Murray would instinctively get behind me to usher me along. When he was younger he would nip at my heel: hence the name ‘Heeler’.