October 13, 2026, 4:14 p.m. ET
Kacey Musgraves applauds Kristi Noem for using her deceased dog as a reference to throw shade at her.
“I don’t think you have a dog in this fight, but if you did, you would have put him down,” the 38-year-old country singer wrote in response to Noem, who said on Oct. 12 that she would take Ella Langley “over Kacey Musgraves any day” after Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico shared photos of himself attending Musgraves’ concert.
The former South Dakota governor, 54, added: “And if I choose Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico.”
Talarico, who is running against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race, appeared to side with Musgraves, posting another photo with her with the caption: “Don’t mess with Texas.”
Noem did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment on Musgraves’ remarks.
Noem admitted to killing a hunting dog in 2024
Musgraves’ comments referenced the former Homeland Security secretary’s admission in 2024 that she shot an “untrainable” family dog after a pheasant hunt.
Noem, in her memoir “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward,” wrote that she killed her 14-month-old pointer named Cricket because of his “aggressive personality” and called the dog “untrainable,” USA TODAY previously reported.
Noem defended murder as a fact of farm life
Cricket disrupted the hunt by going “crazy with excitement, chasing all these birds and having the time of his life,” Noem wrote. Then, on the way home, the dog killed a local family’s chickens and tried to bite Noem when she intervened. The politician wrote that the dog acted like a “trained assassin” who was “dangerous to anyone it came into contact with.”
The anecdote sparked backlash from both sides of the aisle and quickly became a topic for Noem’s political opponents. The Democratic National Committee called the book’s excerpts “horrible” and “disturbing.”
Noem defended the story as a fact of life on the farm and as an indicator that she can cope with “difficult, messy and ugly” tasks, explaining that “Cricket had shown aggressive behavior towards people by biting them, I decided what I did.” » She also cited the South Dakota law that allows owners to put down dogs that attack and kill livestock.
“Whether running the ranch or in politics, I have never handed over my responsibilities to anyone else. Even though it is hard and painful. I followed the law and was a responsible parent, dog owner and neighbor,” Noem said at the time. “As I explained in the book, it wasn’t easy. But often the simplest solution isn’t the right one.”
Contributors: Anthony Robledo, Sudiksha Kochi / USA TODAY
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Contact her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.
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