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.

RONDO | Hero Dog Catches Alligator in NYC

Hero Dog with Catch. So where is the false alligator?

I was walking my Grandpup Rondo (my daughter's dog) this afternoon and was admiring the excellent new CitiBike installation on Ninth Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets.

When I turned round, and... Rondo had a baby alligator in his mouth!

Hero Rondo gets appreciation from Grandma.

Where the contractors were working on the bike installation, a manhole cover had been left open and the baby alligator must have crawled out.

The baby alligator was beyond rescue by the time I inspected it, so I brought both Rondo and the alligator upstairs to show Alice, my wife in the photo, what our Hero Grandpuppy had caught.

One less alligator to terrify our dedicated and brave
NYC sewer workers.

I am attaching a couple more photos for those Alligator-in-Sewer sceptics.

Who do you want to believe?

• Your own eyes? ...
• Or the "Urban Legend" deniers?

If you want to read about the long history of alligators in the NYC sewers and alligators mailed to NYC from Florida, here are two reports from Snopes.

• The first is  about alligator sitings in New York, in and out of sewers. Snopes 1. 

• The second is a report, with stories dating back to the 1930s, about baby alligators being mailed to NYC from Florida. Snopes 2.

May false alligators be put to rest by heroes like Rondo, and may true alligators thrive all around. 

P.S. Rondo is a hero again! For another True Hero story, go here.