Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's chances at being former President Donald Trump's vice presidential pick, if not her political career altogether, were significantly damaged by her recent admission that she once shot and killed an "aggressive" and "untrainable" young hunting dog.

This is far from the first dog-related controversy to rock Washington D.C., though, as Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) just reminded everyone that his opponent in the 2012 presidential race, former President Barack Obama, once admitted to eating dog meat, the Daily Mail reported.

Romney, readers may recall, was scandalized by a biased media frenzy during the 2012 election cycle over a report that he once transported the family dog in a car-top carrier on a lengthy road trip.

"I didn’t eat my dog. I didn’t shoot my dog."

Mediaite reported that Sen. Romney was recently asked for his thoughts on the brewing scandal for Gov. Noem following the revelation that she once put down a young dog on her farm and was quick to try to differentiate his canine-related controversy from hers while also taking a bite against his former presidential rival, Obama.

"I didn’t eat my dog. I didn’t shoot my dog. I loved my dog and my dog loved me," Romney told reporters.

"I cannot imagine circumstances that would lead one to take one's dog to a gravel pit, particularly an 11 month old & shoot it," he added. "Other people may have a different point of view."

Noem admits to prior killing of hunting dog

The Guardian reported last week that Gov. Noem, previously considered a top contender to be former President Trump's running mate, revealed in a new book that she once felt compelled to shoot and kill a 14-month-old hunting dog named Cricket that had an "aggressive personality" and had proven itself to be "dangerous," "untrainable," and "worthless" as a hunting dog.

The final straw that led to the "unpleasant job" of putting down the young dog in a gravel pit on Noem's farm came after the female wire-hair pointer ruined a pheasant hunt, attacked and killed a neighbor's chickens, and then bit at its owner when she attempted to restrain it.

Though the governor has steadfastly defended her actions as justified amid an eruption of controversy, most analysts and pundits believe the story has caused irreparable damage to Noem's political career and prospects to be former President Trump's VP.

Romney's and Obama's dog-related scandals

It could be argued that Sen. Romney's prospects to be president in 2012 were similarly destroyed by the media-driven controversy over a 2007 recollection from his son, Tagg Romney, about how their family dog, an Irish setter named Seamus, had suffered diarrhea while being transported in a kennel atop the family station wagon on a 12-hour trip from Boston, Massachusetts, to Ontario, Canada, according to The Washington Post at the time.

The purported outrage was unabated despite claims from multiple members of the Romney family that Seamus was well-protected from the wind and elements in the car-top kennel and enjoyed the sights and smells from his elevated traveling position.

Meanwhile, despite the best efforts of the Romney campaign and others to make it a campaign issue, per an ABC News report at the time, there was not a similar backlash to the admission in then-Sen. Obama's 2007 memoir "Dreams From My Father" that, as a boy living in Indonesia, he had consumed dog meat.

"With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy)," Obama wrote of his step-father Lolo Sotero. "Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share."

The Daily Caller at that time offered up plenty of humorous takes on the canine controversies for both candidates but, as the history books will always show, the media generally applied a (D)ifferent standard to Obama's dog meat story while they simultaneously hounded Republican Romney over his traveling arrangements for the family dog.