There have been posts on social networks for about a year about a dog who played one of the main roles in the 2007 science fiction film. The animal is reported to be still alive and well. We checked whether these publications are true.

Similar posts began to circulate en masse at the end of August 2022. Usually they consisted of a picture divided into two parts: on top stood photo from the filming of the film “I Am Legend” indicating the release year 2007, and below is a photo of a German shepherd indicating the year 2022. It was reported that the dog named Abby, who played in the film, is alive and well and that she is now 15 years old. From January to April 2023, a simplified version of the post began to circulate, which simply states that Abby is still fine - this is presented to subscribers as good news.

Such publications became incredibly popular on VKontakte, where some posts received hundreds of thousands and even millions of views. Public pages were written about Abby being alive and well “Rhymes and punches"(1.4 million views at the time of writing this analysis), Ecstasy (623,000), World of Cinema (twice: 249,000 And 160,000), "Science | Science"(221,000), Problem (187,000), Popcorn (94,000), "Bald Head Danny DeVito"(55,000), F a p — F a p (51,000), "Pet products from Europe. EuroShop Pets"(36,000), MyComics | Marvel (28,000), etc.

Photo: screenshots of posts from the site vk.com (1 And 2)

The film I Am Legend is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Richard Matheson. released released in December 2007. Will Smith played Dr. Robert Neville in this film, living in post-apocalyptic New York in the company of a dog named Sam (full name Samantha). According to the film site IMDb, the role of the animal performed German shepherds Kona and Abby, who are written about on social networks.

Shortly before the premiere, in November 2007, Entertainment Weekly reportedthat Abby was three years old at that time. She was found in one of the California nurseries by trainer Steve Behrens from the company Animals of Distinction with almost 30 years of experience in the film industry. Behrens trained Abby, he says, from scratch over the course of several weeks, followed by a six-month shoot that lasted from the end of September 2006 to the end of March 2007. The "spare" dog, Kona, was needed because Abby refused to play the fetch game. Thus, by the fall of 2022, the performer of the role of Sam should have been much older than 15 years.

Photo: screenshot of the berensanimals.com website page

As for the viral photo of Abby, allegedly taken in 2022, we found its original source thanks to a reverse image search on the website LADbible. The photo is taken from the material, published in September 2018 under the headline "I Am Legend's Dog Abby Is Now 13 and Living Life to the Fullest." It said the animal was alive and well (though almost deaf) and living with the family of its trainer, Steve Behrens, who said Abby was enjoying “retirement” with his daughter and her children. “She was always part of the family,” the trainer said.

In a conversation with LADbible, Behrens clarified that he took Abby in mid-July 2006, and then at the end of September she appeared on camera. Thus, in 2023 she would have been approximately 18–19 years old. Data on the average life expectancy of German Shepherds on different sites differ: somewhere they write about 10–15 years, somewhere - about 9–13, and somewhere they say that dogs of this breed can reach 18 years old. You can also read about individual long-lived individuals more than 20 years.

To dot the i’s, Verified wrote to Behrens personally back in September 2022 to find out about Abby’s fate. Unfortunately, by that time the dog had already died. “She died a couple of years ago. Abby was a great dog and a great family member, we miss her,” her owner said.