The Guardian obtained a copy of the upcoming book, “No Going Back,” in which Noem wrote about shooting her dog after deciding it was “less than worthless” and “untrainable.” NBC News reported:

In her account, Noem grabbed her gun and led the dog, named Cricket, to a gravel pit. “It was not a pleasant job, but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done,” Noem wrote. She then went on to kill a family goat, which she called “nasty and mean.” Noem also led the goat to a gravel pit, where she said her first shot wounded but did not kill the animal. She got another shell for her gun and killed the goat, according to the book.

Noem’s book, according to her publisher, will “packed with surprising stories.” My MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim added over the weekend, “The publisher isn’t wrong.”....

All of which leaves us with a question that has no obvious answer: Why in the world would Noem admit to something like this? I won’t pretend to know what the governor was thinking, but there are plenty of possibilities:

Maybe she doesn’t want to be Trump’s running mate. If Noem were determined to self-sabotage her chances of making her party’s ticket, this would make sense.

Maybe she’s trying to appeal to Trump by focusing on one of his phobias. It’s not a secret that the former president and dogs don’t get along.

Maybe she’s trying to convey something resembling “toughness.” Can J.D. Vance, Tim Scott, and Elise Stefanik also say that they also shot family pets?

Maybe this is some weird Second Amendment thing. If Noem wanted to remind Republicans that she has and uses guns, I suppose this is one way to go about doing so.

Maybe she was trying to get ahead of the story. A Politico report added, “Noem writes that some construction workers saw her shoot Cricket. ... Could it be she was trying to tell a bad story on her own terms before someone else did?”

Maybe she’s just bad at this. “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here,” Noem wrote. Yes. Exactly.

......Whatever the explanation, Democrats are having a field day with the story, making it that much less likely that Noem’s vice presidential ambitions will be fulfilled.