Steve and Toby

http://www.sherlockpeoria.net/Report_pages/HWRArticleArchive/HolmesDog.html

Although the roots are quite different, I do think there is a vague similarity between Sherlock Holmes' borrowed dog, Toby and our beloved rat, Steve McQueen.

Aside from the obvious (and completely hilarious) fact that only House would identify with a rat (well, and the kid in "Ben" but that's a completely different story), I'm looking forward to a moment when Steve helps House solve a mystery rather than the other way around.

In other news, I was watching "The Creeping Man" last night and, lo and behold, Holmes used a blackboard (!) to calculate the dates of the crime.

I raced to my canon to prove that Holmes ~did~ use a board (I still think he did in "The Dancing Men" but I'd have to look it up again).

Sadly and much to my dismay, Holmes did not use a board in the canon.

I'm somewhat surprised the BBC and Brett bothered if Holmes didn't. Quite honestly, it didn't add much to the story.

I did read this fact, though: "The Creeping Man" (which, admittedly is a strange story) came quite late in the canon and there are those who argue it is not part of Doyle's original work. (See William S. Baring-Gould's annotations.)