She decided to kill the 14-month-old dog she was training to hunt birds when it attacked chickens, an understandable mistake for a young dog IMO, and bit her once when she grabbed it's collar (no word on how seriously). She killed a goat by shooting it twice because she didn't like it, calling it mean and smelly. Apparently she's also recently put down 3 horses for unspecified reasons.
She deliberately included it in her new book "to illustrate her willingness, in politics as well as in South Dakota life, to do anything 'difficult, messy and ugly' if it simply needs to be done." When criticized she said, "I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here.”
Sometimes animals do need to be euthanized, but it's rarely a first choice. Animal lovers and those who hunt with dogs have not been kind in their appraisals of the decisions. It's just a meme and maybe I don't need to worry, but her talk about carrying that attitude into politics puts me off.
Finally, Trump is old, unhealthy and there's fears he's showing signs of dementia. So this time VP choice might really matter a few years down the road.
I can't speak for others, but I'll tell you why I downvoted you.
Right now my parents have two springer spaniels. They are about 7 months old and they've nipped me a few times because they playfight constantly and that's what young dogs do. It's how they explore the world. Most of the time when they're putting my hands in their mouth they're quite gentle, but sometimes they get excited and rough enough to be briefly painful. They are not dangerously aggressive by any reasonable definition and they aren't biting with serious intent. They've never broken/marked skin and when you say Ouch or Stop they calm down and behave. It's the dog equivalent of one kid pushing down another kid in the playground, i.e. they're learning how to play and it's not justification for being shot and killed.
Kristi was training the dog to hunt and kill birds - that's specifically mentioned. She then took this young, partially-trained dog to a farm with chickens without a leash. "Chickens = the birds I'm being told to kill" in the mind of the dog, which makes sense because chickens are birds. Then Kristi grabbed the dog by the collar, and the dog turned around to bite her once. There's no word on how serious the bite was (Kristi makes no mention about having to seek medical attention for instance), and it's not as if the dog kept on attacking her. There's no story about this dog seeking out Kristi, her kids, or any other humans to bite them on any other occasion so labelling the dog as aggressive to humans isn't a reasonable conclusion. She says she "hated the dog", which is already kind of odd and she also talks about hating the goat she shot twice and killed. I don't think most people hate their pets/farm animals even if they reasonably decide they must be put down. Anyways, after that one incident she chose to kill the dog herself. Not attempt to teach it to be calm, not leash train it, not wait for it to grow out of being an adolescent into an calmer adult dog. That summary execution is why animal lovers and people who hunt with dogs are expressing disgust with her decision.
The reason I made a political meme about it is she says she wants to carry that attitude into politics. She's deliberately recording and repeating that story as proof that she's willing to do "difficult, messy, and ugly" things. Given tales like Trump asking troops to kill or at least wound racial justice protesters in Seattle and Portland during his time in office it's an attitude at least worth noting because "difficult, messy, ugly" decisions -may- include stuff like that.
They are much younger, meaning more malleable, and are also exhibiting different behavioural patterns.
This is a good point, but unfortunately it is the case that pets often have to suffer the consequences of their owner's insufficient knowledge and experience. She trained a dog for a purpose that requires her to be able to control it, without actually building the relation with the animal to attain this.
The owner has a responsibility to prevent this before it happens. If there are early signs and the owner cannot control the dog, they have to find another solution rather than hope for the best on the expense of a child who may be mildly to seriously hurt and develop a lifelong traumatic fear of dogs.
She had it for 1.4 years, of course she has attempted (unsuccessfully and probably not extinguishing all options) to rectify its behaviour. The owner's limitations will hurt the dog, but it is right to recognize that their relation should stop. There could potentially be a third solution that included placing it for adoption, but the majority of animal lovers that you mention in the sentence
do not really want to adopt a dog that is not still a puppy because it is not "cute enough" and not malleable enough, precisely one of the issues that distinguishes this situation (to my knowledge) from your anecdotal story.
I get that she is probably a shitty person who wants to do wrong things without further justification other than "somebody had to do it and I am such a person". However, I detest anything resembling the infantile moral judgement in the style of Hollywood, where the definite evaluation of good and bad characters are by how they treat a dog. Dogs are not that special.