On Monday, just four weeks after bringing her home, we were forced to put her down because she went into severe kidney failure with little chance of recovery.

In retrospect, we think Siara may have been born with kidney problems. She always craved water but didn’t pee much, and she seemed not to have as much energy as most Huskies.

But the signs were subtle. At least four different vets saw her and didn’t make the connection until she was desperately ill. Even if we’d figured this out as soon as we got her, it’s not clear she could have recovered enough to have a normal life.

There’s no one who loves you like your dog. Not your parents, your kids, your siblings, or your spouse. We bond to dogs and they bond to us. Together, we make both our lives better. They really are our best friends.

That’s why it’s so hard to hear about how South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem not only shot a 14-month-old puppy in cold blood because she thought he was “untrainable,” but featured a story about this incident in her recently published memoir.

Really? There were no alternatives? No one else to take in this animal and give it a loving home? No shelters that would have tried to find a new family for this puppy? More often that not, it’s not the dog that’s untrainable, but the owner. But if the dog really was so terrible (hard to believe for a puppy that young!), there was no other more humane way to put it down?

There is a special place in Hell reserved for those who abuse animals. Some of these people go on to abuse or even kill people. We can learn a lot about the nature of a person by how they treat the people around them. I wouldn’t want someone who shoots puppies making decisions for the American people.

In the midst of our grief at losing our puppy, we at least know we gave her as much love and support as we could for the short time she was with us.

RIP, Siara Storm.