Everything was on track for the Jefferson County Republicans’ Lincoln Day Dinner — until its keynote speaker told the world about the time she shot and killed an uncontrollable 14-month-old dog.

Before a British newspaper published excerpts from South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s forthcoming book, “No Going Back,” the Republican was rumored to be among the leading prospects for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate.

That’s one reason the Jeffco GOP was thrilled that Noem had agreed to headline the party’s annual fundraiser, scheduled for May 4 at a Golden hotel. Her publisher had even sent the party hundreds of copies of Noem’s book — subtitled “The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward” — to hand out to donors at the dinner, three days before its official release.

“She’s been wanting to come to Colorado for some time, and it was perfect timing,” Nancy Pallozzi, the Jeffco Republican chair, told Colorado Politics.

The sold-out dinner, showcasing a rising national star, was primed to jumpstart Pallozzi’s long-term plans to reboot the beleaguered party that until only recently ruled the roost in the Colorado county boasting more registered Republicans than any other except for El Paso County.

But on April 26, just over a week before Noem’s scheduled appearance at the GOP fundraiser, the Guardian posted a story featuring Noem’s account in her book of the day she “put down” Cricket, a female wirehair pointer, when the “untrainable” dog got overly excited on a pheasant hunt and then attacked and killed a neighboring family’s chickens like “a trained assassin.”

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the dog “dangerous” and “less than worthless” as a hunting dog. So, according to Noem’s own account, she got her shotgun, led the dog to a gravel pit and shot Cricket.

Noem realized “another unpleasant job needed to be done,” she wrote. Next, she “dragged” a foul-smelling male goat that liked to chase and butt her children to the gravel pit and killed him, too. She wrote that it took two attempts because the goat jumped when she first shot and was only wounded, so Noem had to retrieve another shell from her truck before finishing the job.

Politico later reported that Noem’s publishing team had persuaded her to omit the anecdote about killing the animals from her 2022 book, “Not My First Rodeo: Lessons From the Heartland,” which landed Noem on the bestseller list. According to the Guardian, Noem wrote that she included the story in her new book to demonstrate her willingness to do what needs to be done, even if it’s “difficult, messy and ugly.”

The story drew howls of outrage, including a planned protest organized by ProgressNow Colorado, which asked supporters to show up outside the fundraiser with “well-behaved, leashed dogs” and signs to deliver a message that “Noem’s outrageous animal cruelty has no place in politics, in Colorado or elsewhere.”

Sara Loflin, the progressive group’s executive director, urged protesters to bring “extra doggie bags” so ensure they left the grounds as clean as they found them.

The day before the party’s Lincoln Day Dinner, Pallozzi canceled the fundraiser, citing “security concerns,” which she told Colorado Politics included death threats directed toward Noem, her staff, the Jeffco GOP and the venue.

“We did not have any knowledge of what was written in that book, planning this. This was months in advance,” said Pallozzi, who added that she’d seen the news coverage but intended to “read the book and analyze it for myself.”

“Throughout the week, Gov. Noem got death threats — they had to put in extra security,” Pallozzi said. “I got them, I got messages, and even the hotel was getting death threats.”

She said it was a tough decision to pull the plug.

“It’s just a scare tactic for lots of people to do that, but we finally said we can’t put anyone in danger here. I would hate for anyone to get hurt,” she said.

In a news release posted to the county party’s website announcing the event’s cancellation, Pallozzi pointed a finger at ProgressNow, the homegrown advocacy group that last year marked its 20th anniversary trying to move the political needle in Colorado.

“Our No. 1 concern is safety for all, and when extremist organizations such as Progress Now, organize a protest, the outcome is never good, and someone always gets hurt,” Pallozzi said in the statement.

In an interview, Pallozzi said she didn’t have any evidence tying the progressive group to the threats of physical harm she and others had received, but she refused to back off from her earlier statement.

“Hurt doesn’t necessarily mean physical hurt,” she said. “It could be emotional hurt. There’s lots of yelling and screaming in people’s faces. It’s happened to me. I have personal experience with the organization. That word ‘hurt’ could mean lots of things.”

Loflin told Colorado Politics that was a false characterization of the organization and its history of drawing attention to what ProgressNow terms “conservative misdeeds.”

“The reason this fundraiser was canceled is that Kristi Noem’s values are not Colorado values, and organizers realized they were making a terrible political mistake bringing her here,” Loflin wrote in an email to supports that described the cancellation as “a small measure of justice for Cricket and other victims of animal cruelty.”

Loflin added that “dog lovers from across the state were ready to show up tomorrow in Golden and peacefully stand up for animal rights and common decency.”

Pallozzi said she plans to reschedule the dinner but was happy that many of the donors who bought tickets have told the party to keep the contribution.

“The governor is very upset about this,” Pallozzi said. “She’s going to make good with this. We’re going to lay low and, eventually, in a couple of months, she’ll come out. She has a lot of followers out here, a lot of people know her and love her.”

Added Pallozzi: “It is what it is. It was supposed to be bringing out a great speaker and raising money for the party. She is a wonderful woman. She wouldn’t be governor if she wasn’t.”

Since its publication, Noem’s book has attracted a flood of single-star reviews — the lowest rating available — on Amazon, including one from a reader who called it “a book for those who loved the first few minutes of John Wick and loved the ending of ‘Old Yeller.'”

In a series of tense interviews on national news shows, a defensive and combative Noem admitted the book also contained “errors,” including a detailed story about the time she stared down North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, despite no evidence that ever happened. The publisher removed that description from the book, the Associated Press reported.

A couple of days after cancelling the ill-fated fundraiser, Pallozzi cringed when she recalled watching Noem spar with Margaret Brennan, the anchor of CBS’s Face the Nation, on May 5.

“We’re going to just see what happens here,” Pallozzi said. “This weekend, when I was watching TV — the interview with Face the Nation was not a good one for her. I don’t think she’s going to pull out of this one.”

Ernest Luning has covered politics for Colorado Politics and its predecessor publication, The Colorado Statesman, since 2009. He’s analyzed the exploits, foibles and history of state campaigns and politicians since 2018 in the weekly Trail Mix column.

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