ST. PAUL, Minn. — Gilbert the golden retriever was home with Democratic leader and Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband when a gunman fatally shot the couple and mortally wounded their beloved dog. And he was with them again Friday when the Hortmans lay in state at the Capitol in St. Paul.

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 nonhuman ever lying in state, and Melissa Hortman, a former state House speaker still leading the chamber’s Democrats, 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.

Hundreds of people waited outside the Capitol before they were allowed into the rotunda at noon to pay their respects. Two pedestals sat between the Hortmans’ caskets, one for an arrangement of flowers and the other, for the gold-colored urn holding Gilbert’s remains.

— The Associated Press