Castlewood, South Dakota - Former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem drew immediate backlash after celebrating the state’s pheasant hunting opener with a photo of herself holding a hunting rifle alongside her dog – prompting a flood of backlash online, with one commentator pleading, "Please don't kill him."

While the post was meant to mark the start of South Dakota's official pheasant hunting season, the imagery stirred up immediate backlash due to Noem's controversial past.

In her 2024 memoir, No Going Back, Noem detailed shooting and killing her 14-month-old Wirehaired Pointer, Cricket. Labelling the dog "untrainable" and "less than worthless" as a hunting companion, she described taking Cricket to a gravel pit to shoot and kill the dog.

The X post by the former DHS secretary, which reads, "Happy Opener, South Dakota! Foster and I wish you good luck in the field! Pheasant hunting is part of who we are, and it’s a tradition worth passing on to our kids and grandkids," also features a photo of Noem, who is seen holding a gun, posing with a hunting dog.

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Political commentator Ed Krassenstein bluntly replied, "Please don’t kill him."

John Bourscheid chimed in to offer his two cents: "The worst possible thing you could post would be a dog and a gun, lady. Come on."

Journalist Molly Jong-Fast simply wrote, "Justice for cricket," while another X user posted a cropped photo of the dog's face: "dog: i am concern."

Noem recently faced dog-related backlash from country singer Kacey Musgraves, who clapped back at Noem's criticism of her and the Texas Senate race by saying, "I don't think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it."