Kacey Musgraves torches Kristi Noem for shooting her dog after the former Homeland Security secretary snubbed singer for Ella Langley

Kacey Musgraves lambasted Kristi Noem for previously admitting to shooting her dog, after the former Homeland Security secretary said she prefers country singer Ella Langley.

The feud kicked off after Democratic politician James Talarico, who is running for the US senate, gushed about attending Musgraves's, 38, Dallas concert on Saturday in a post on X.

After Talarico shared a photo with the singer and thanked her for having him at her show, Noem, 54, re-shared the post to her X and took a jab at Musgraves while endorsing conservative senate hopeful Ken Paxton.

'I’ll take @ellalangleymsic over Kacey Musgraves any day. And if I’m choosin’ Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico,' she wrote.

Musgraves hit back, writing, 'I don’t think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it.'

The jab referenced Noem's past admission that she shot her 14-month-old puppy, Cricket, after deeming her 'untrainable.' 

In 2024, Noem defended shooting her puppy after her confession sparked massive backlash.

Noem caused a storm after she revealed she shot the dog in her book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.

Responding to the backlash, Noem said she 'can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket.'

The Republican continued: 'The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned. What I learned from my years of public service, especially leading South Dakota through COVID, is people are looking for leaders who are authentic, willing to learn from the past, and don’t shy away from tough challenges.'

'My hope is anyone reading this book will have an understanding that I always work to make the best decisions I can for the people in my life.'

'The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did. Whether running the ranch or in politics, I have never passed on my responsibilities to anyone else to handle. Even if it’s hard and painful.

'I followed the law and was being a responsible parent, dog owner, and neighbor. As I explained in the book, it wasn't easy. But often the easy way isn't the right way.'

Noem claimed she included the tale in her book to show her willingness to do anything 'difficult, messy and ugly' if it has to be done.

The Republican wrote that she took Cricket on a hunting trip with older dogs in hopes of calming down the wild puppy. Instead, Cricket chased the pheasants while 'having the time of her life.'

Noem wrote that on the way home from the hunting trip, when she stopped to talk to a family, Cricket got out of her truck and attacked and killed some of the family’s chickens, and then bit the governor.

Noem apologized profusely, wrote the distraught family a check for the deceased chickens, and helped them dispose of the carcasses, she writes. She wrote that Cricket 'was the picture of joy' as all that unfolded.

'I hated that dog,' Noem wrote, deeming her 'untrainable.'

'At that moment,' she said, 'I realized I had to put her down.'

Noem then recalled leading Cricket to a gravel pit and shooting her dead.

That wasn’t all. Noem wrote that her family also owned a 'nasty and mean' male goat that smelled bad and liked to chase her kids, so she decided to go ahead and kill the goat, too.

She wrote that the goat survived the first shot, so she went back to the truck, got another shell, then shot him again, killing him.

Noem previously took to social media to defend herself.

'We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,' she said on X.

'Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.'

Noem has has also made headlines in recent weeks after it was revealed in September that she filed for divorce from her husband Bryon, just months after the Daily Mail exposed his crossdressing online porn fetish. 

Court documents submitted on April 6 cite 'irreconcilable differences' as the grounds for the split. 

Bryon's cross-dressing fetish and explicit exchanges with online porn models were exposed in March, nearly 34 years after the couple married in 1992. 

Meanwhile, country superstar Langley has recently come under fire after her old hunting photos resurfaced online.

The Choosin' Texas hitmaker, 27, has posted a series of images to her own social media accounts of her various kills over the years, which were slammed as 'awful' and 'disgusting' by fans.