A FAREWELL TO DANTE

There is a heartrending moment when pet owners realize it's time to time to say a final goodbye to their loyal companions. For Massachusetts State Trooper Christopher Coscia, it came on a frigid morning in early January when Dante, his K-9 partner of more than eight years — a big, loyal, smart German Shepherd — suffered yet another seizure in the fresh snow outside of their house. "He was so beautiful, he was hard not to love," Coscia tells Yahoo Shine. "Everybody just wanted to be with him." Coscia knew it would be best to let Dante go, but before bringing him in to be put to be sleep, the duo took what Coscia refers to as "One Last Ride" together, and describes those bittersweet final hours in a moving obituary he posted on the State Police Facebook page on Tuesday.

Coscia says the obit was meant for his colleagues at headquarters who knew Dante, but he's since received an outpouring of love and support from strangers as far away as England, and the tribute has been liked more than 10,000 times. [You can read the full text here.]

"Dante was best described as a one-person dog," Coscia wrote, "Every morning when I opened the door to his kennel he would jump up on me, wrap his paws around my waist, get his morning greeting and pat from me, storm up the stairs, and push the door open ready to go to work." Coscia tells Yahoo Shine that the 9-year-old dog truly loved his job and some days he didn't even want to get out of the patrol car to go home. "After my shift, I'd go to the car and open the door, and I'd have to grab him by the collar and say, 'That's it, work's over.'"