BY MARCUS GILMER From Mashable

The Internet can often be a cold, dark place. But there are instances when a story strikes such a chord with online audiences that a community can coalesce around a subject for the greater good.

Retiring Marietta, Ohio police officer Matthew Hickey and his K9 partner, Ajax, are discovering how wonderful that can be.

As Hickey planned to retire, he had assumed that Ajax would come to live with him. Ajax has lived with Hickey for the last three years and the retired officer considers the dog “a family member” in addition to the dog’s role on the police force.

“There is a bond between us and it’s very special and I would hate to lose my buddy,” Hickey told WTAP.

But there’s a catch: according to city law, Ajax is property of the city of Marietta. And Ohio state law says, “A law enforcement officer who leaves an equine or canine unit of a law enforcement agency while the police dog or horse assigned to the officer is still fit for duty forfeits the right to purchase the animal under this section.”

Hickey found out when his chief rejected his offer to purchase Ajax, telling WTAP, “I had the money for the dog and was ready to hand it to the the chief of police, and the chief of police said he couldn’t take it.”

Ajax is six years old and considered fit for active duty for several more years. Even though Hickey offered to pay the city to keep the dog — the city says Ajax is worth $3,500 — city law dictates that the dog must be sold at auction, though the auction is limited to only active and retired police and any officially sanctioned K9 trainers.

Marietta Law Director Paul Betram III told WBNS, “The dog is property of the city of Marietta. Because it is personal property, it is treated like a shovel. That’s just the way it is.”

And that’s where the Internet stepped in. A Change.org petition collected over 22,000 signatures and Facebook users took to the city of Marietta’s page to express their displeasure with the law.

Your voices are being heard and your comments are important. All posts that have been received have been passed on;…

Posted by Marietta Ohio on Friday, January 29, 2016

But then the collective of supporters decided to channel their rage more productively. Rather than let Hickey have to sweat out the possibility of being outbid, a GoFundMe page has raised over $50,000 in less than a week to go towards Hickey’s purchase of Ajax at auction. The auction date has yet to be set, but should be announced on Thursday, February 4th.

Assuming no one tries to outbid Hickey for Ajax (and, really, who would be so cold?), the remaining money is to be spent on protective vests for K9 units, a growing trend in light of recent law enforcement incidents.

A GoFundMe campaign recently raised more than $37,000 for police dog vests in Canton, Ohio following the recent death of K9 Jethro who was killed in the line of duty on January 9. And CNN’s Anderson Cooper made a similar gesture following the death of another K9 in Virginia.

The vests will probably continue to be an ongoing topic following Sunday’s stabbing death of a K9 officer in the line of duty near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

For more on this story and video go to: http://mashable.com/2016/01/31/k9-auction-fundraiser/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#sAPZZA3YwOqo