HERO DOG | KLM's Sherlock

Sherlock, KLM's Find-It Canine, has been watched
by 10 million people in eight months.

In the Time Travel blog we like to keep track of Hero Dogs.

KLM has one, the dog Sherlock, who has been filmed patroling Schiphol Airport to find the owners of lost cell phones etc. left in airplanes.

The dog runs to the plane, smells the lost item, then runs into the airport to find the owner.

He has a reportedly high success rate.

Watch the whole story here.

The dog is real.

Is it a true story?

It is true in the sense that it strikes a chord in the human heart.

But for those who insist on literal truth, the story does not measure up.

I mean, the ability of the dog to find its owner is not demonstrated.

Sherlock, the cute beagle who was said to be the “newest team member” of the KLM Airlines Lost & Found team, zipped through a Dutch airport in a video that by last month attracted more than 9.2 million YouTube views since it was posted on Sept. 23, 2015. My post should take it over 10 million (jus kidding).

The KLM employees in the video refer to Sherlock as their “tail-wagging secret weapon.” But actually his superhero qualities were invented and given verisimilitude by the KLM ad agency. I spoke with them today and they said that, yes, they were inspired by my story about Rondo the hero delivery dog.