Vice President JD Vance spoke out against "terrible" people who "mistreat dogs" — despite Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's admission that she shot dead a puppy.
During an interview with New York Post columnist Miranda Devine this week, Vance spoke about his German Shepherd.
"Many Secret Service agents have told us, we're so grateful you have a dog who doesn't bite us, in particular a German Shepherd," Vance said before noting that former President Joe Biden's dog, Commander, had repeatedly bitten agents.
"Atlas is a very friendly dog," the vice president insisted. "I think in part just because of the way that he grew up."
"I mean, the whole thing about Joe Biden, not to dwell on him, but, you know, to choose a German shepherd, you have to put a lot of effort into them, and they're very intelligent dogs. And he obviously hadn't done that."
According to Vance, his dog was "obsessively trained" during the six months before he became vice president. But he said that painful training devices, such as a shock collar, were not used to train Atlas.
"No electrocution of dogs here," he told Devine. "If you can actually cause suffering to an innocent animal, you're probably the kind of person who doesn't worry about suffering in people as well."
"And that's been my experience. If you mistreat dogs, that's almost a hundred percent sign that you're going to be a really terrible person," Vance added. "But you can tell if somebody's really mean to animals, you know, it's like the Jeffrey Dahmer thing. Like every serial killer ever has actually been really bad to animals."
In her 2024 book, Noem admitted that she used an electric shock collar to train a puppy named Cricket.
"I hated that dog," she wrote. "I realized I had to put her down."
Noem then described how she led the puppy to a gravel pit and shot her to death.