Did Eric Clapton name his dog after Dr. Dolittle's Pooch? I recall in an old interview (from the 70s), Eric Clapton said that his dog's name was “Jeep.” I have remembered this all these decades because it seemed like such an odd name to me. But now I am reading Dr. Dolittle, and find that his dog was named “Jip.” I assume that "Jip" and "Jeep" may be pronounced the same way and, in fact, the interviewer may have spelled the name of Clapton's dog "Jeep" when the proper spelling of the pet pooch was actually "Jip." If so, then Hugh Lofting's book ( _Dr. Dolittle_ ) may indeed be where Clapton got the name. Does anybody know "the rest of the story"?

On his autobiography, Clapton mentions his dog Jeep only once. Recalling the spring of 1976, when after a year of touring across the world he returned to his country estate Hurtwood, he writes:

> "When we had a copule of dogs living there - Jeep, a weimaraner, my first dog since childhood, and Sunshine, a golden retriever - we would let them crap in the house because we were too stoned to clear it up."
>
> _(Clapton: The Autobiography, pg. 169)_

So the interviewer (or multiple other sources, including George Harrison song "I remember Jeep") didn't misspell Clapton's dog name.

I don't know of any source that reveals the origin of Clapton's dog name, but you can be pretty certain that it was not named after Dr. Dolittle's dog Jip, as the spelling and pronunciation are different.