A slain Minnesota lawmaker’s beloved dog, Gilbert, stays with her as she and her spouse lie in state
Jun 27, 2025, 10:23 AM | Updated: 2:24 pm
In this photo from 2022, provided by Helping Paws of Eden Prairie, Minn., state Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, poses with Gilbert, a golden retriever trained to be a service dog but eventually adopted by the Hortman family, at a training facility in Hopkins, Minnesota. (Helping Paws via AP)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(Helping Paws via AP)
Gilbert was with his family when a gunman murdered two of his family members, a prominent Minnesota legislator and her husband, and the golden retriever was beside them as they lay in state Friday at the state Capitol.
He is all but certainly the first dog to receive the honor, having been put down after being badly injured in the attack. There is no record of any other non-human ever lying in state, and the late state Rep. Melissa Hortman, the state House’s top Democrat and a former speaker, is the first woman. The state previously granted the honor to 19 men, including a vice president, a U.S. secretary of state, U.S. senators, governors and a Civil War veteran, according to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.
Gilbert has received a flood tributes like Hortman and her husband, Mark, ever since news spread online that he had been shot, too, in the attack early on the morning of June 14 by a man posing as a police officer. The accused assassin, Vance Boelter, is also charged with shooting a prominent Democratic state senator and his wife, and authorities say Boelter visited two other Democratic lawmakers’ homes without encountering them.
The dog’s injuries were severe enough that surviving family members had him put to sleep at a veterinary clinic in the Hortmans’ hometown of Brooklyn Park, a Minneapolis suburb. The clinic, Allied Emergency Veterinary Service, called Gilbert “sweet and gentle” and “deeply loved” on a GoFundMe site raising money for the care of local police dogs.
Hours after the shootings, a nonprofit that trains service dogs, Helping Paws Inc., posted a picture on Facebook of Gilibert with the murdered Minnesota lawmaker, both smiling. The Hortmans provided a foster home to dogs to help train them to be service animals, and one of them, Minnie, had graduated on to assisting a veteran.
But Helping Paws said in its post that Gilbert “eventually career changed.”
One of Hortman’s fellow lawmakers, Democratic Rep. Erin Koegel, told AP that the golden retriever had “flunked out of school” and that “Melissa wanted him to fail so she could keep him.” Gilbert had been deemed ”too friendly” to be a service dog, KARE-TV reported.
