Doctor Dolittle Inspired Dog Names

Sophie, the seal on the show, shares her name with an Australian Cattle Dog who lives near Queensland, that made headlines in 2009 for her extraordinary swimming adventure. Sophie was accompanying her family on a boating trip off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia when the yacht hit bumpy waters and the dog was jostled overboard. Her owners, Jan and David Griffith, searched the waters for her to no avail and went home distraught believing their beloved pet had drowned. They were wrong. Instead, the determined dog swam six miles through oceans infested by sharks to reach a tropical island known as St. Bees. Once on land, Sophie was on her own. She was seen by a handful of the island residents, initially quite skinny and bedraggled, but the dog soon learned to subsist by hunting and killing the wild goats in the area. She was eventually captured by rangers who patrol the area and returned to the Griffiths, where she  was quite pleased to readjust to the comforts of being the family dog.

Rex Harrison was known to be an abrupt man, even with his fans, but as an actor was able to master many different roles, from serious dramas, like the 1963 historical drama Cleopatra, to lighter fare, like Doctor Dolittle. Military working dog Rex was described by handlers as aggressive, independent, and macho, but he was also a star in his field. One of the first dogs sent to Iraq with his handler Mike Dowling, Rex never faltered in his duties as either bomb-sniffing dog or a patrol animal, inspiring Mike Dowling to write the autobiographical novel “Sergeant Rex: The Unbreakable Bond Between a Marine and His Working Dog” outlining their experiences together. Rex was later paired with marine Megan Leavey with whom he completed more than 100 missions between 2003 and 2006 when a deeply buried bomb gravely wounded both of them. Megan was awarded the Purple Heart and Rex was returned to service with a new handler. When Rex became unable to do his duties due to illness in 2011, Megan fought to have him returned to her in the United States to live out the remainder of his life, rather than have the military euthanize him. With the help of Mike Dowling and Senator Chuck Schumer, the war hero was allowed to return to Megan in the states in April of 2012, living with her in comfort until his death in December of that year, taken, like Rex Harrison was in 1990, by cancer.