Perdita

Perdita is the female protagonist of the 1961 Disney animated feature film One Hundred and One Dalmatians. She is the pet of Anita, mate of Pongo, the birth mother of 15 Dalmatian puppies and the adoptive mother of 84 more Dalmatian puppies.

## Perdita

### Relatives

Pongo (mate)Lucky, Patch, Rolly, Penny, Freckles, Pepper, and the other puppies (children)

## Appearances

### Portrayed by

Cate Bauer (film)Mary Kay Bergman (Animated Storybook)Pam Dawber (101 Dalmatians: The Series)Kath Soucie (2002-present)

### Appears in

One Hundred and One Dalmatians101 Dalmatians101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London AdventureMickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of MouseThe Further Adventures of Thunderbolt101 Dalmatians: The SeriesHouse of Mouse101 Dalmatian Street (picture cameos)Animated StoryBook: 101 DalmatiansKingdom HeartsDisney Emoji Blitz

### Debut

One Hundred and One Dalmatians

In the original film, Pongo is searching for decent mates for himself and his pet Roger Radcliffe. Pongo is close to giving up when he spots Perdita and her pet, Anita. Pongo rushes to the park to follow them. Perdita spots Pongo and is seemingly attracted to him, but tries to look as if she doesn't notice him. Perdita and Anita soon leave, and Pongo tries a trick to attract their attention. At first, it seems as if it failed, Perdita was mad at Pongo for making her owner, Anita wet. But as Roger and Anita talk more they fall in love. Perdita falls in love with Pongo as well.

Perdita soon becomes pregnant with puppies, but becomes frightened when the family receives a visit from Cruella De Vil, whom she refers to as "that devil woman". Perdita hides but is able to hear Cruella's desire for the puppies. Perdita regrets having puppies due to Cruella wanting them. Unfortunately for Perdita, the puppies arrived three weeks later on a stormy evening in October, where it is revealed that she has had fifteen puppies. She is tired afterward but is relieved to hear from Pongo that the puppies are safe thanks to Roger. The puppies grow and are shown watching their favorite show with their parents. Perdita is seen interacting with her various puppies: scolding Patch for his coarse language, telling Lucky to get down from the TV, and reminding Rolly that they just had dinner.

After the puppies are put to bed, Pongo and Perdita go on a walk with their respective owners. During their absence, the puppies were kidnapped by Cruella's two henchmen, Jasper and Horace. Pongo and Perdita realize that neither the humans nor Scotland Yard will find their puppies and they take it upon themselves to rescue their children. While on their usual walk in Primrose Hill, they use the twilight bark, a canine gossip chain, to spread the news of their stolen puppies across England, though they were dragged back home by Roger and Anita (they thought they were disturbing the whole neighborhood). Later, they receive an answer and learn that their puppies are at Hell Hall, Cruella's former home.

Perdita immediately goes off on a dangerous journey to rescue the puppies alongside Pongo. The winter conditions make the journey tough, but they eventually meet with a sheepdog called the Colonel, who takes them to the puppies. When the puppies were cornered by Horace and Jasper who were about to kill them, Pongo and Perdita break into the room through a window and Perdita fights Horace while Pongo fights Jasper. After they escape, both Pongo and Perdita are relieved to have reunited with their fifteen puppies, yet shocked to discover that there are eighty-four more puppies making a total of ninety-nine puppies. Perdita is shocked and horrified to hear that Cruella plans to kill the puppies, including her own children, and use their fur for dog-skinned coats. With that in mind, Perdita and Pongo decide to adopt the other 84 puppies, knowing Roger and Anita would never turn them out.

After thanking the Colonel, Captain, and Sergeant Tibbs for their help, Perdita and her family flee with Jasper and Horace on their tail. They walk on the ice to avoid leaving tracks on the snow. The next day, Perdita, Pongo, and the puppies are forced to walk in the snow during a blizzard. However, they are found and rescued by a Collie who leads them to a dairy farm for shelter. Once, the Dalmatian family arrive at the dairy farm, safe from the blizzard, the puppies ask Perdita for food, but Perdita doesn't have any to feed her children. However, she is quickly relieved when the cows offer their milk to the puppies, and Perdita orders her children to take turns. After getting enough to eat, Perdita and her family fall asleep before continuing on their journey the next day.

Perdita and her family continue to avoid Cruella (who had learned of their escape) and her minions as they hunt for them. In the small town of Dinsford, Perdita and her family meet a Labrador who reveals that a truck is heading for London, and there is enough room for the entire group. However, when Cruella, Jasper, and Horace arrive, Perdita worries how they'll get to the truck. When Pongo gets inspired to disguise themselves as Labradors by rolling in soot, after Lucky and Patch fought in a soot pile, Perdita reluctantly allows her children to roll in the soot before allowing herself to get covered in soot. The plan goes smoothly as they are not unrecognized by three villains. As they finish uploading the puppies into the truck, Perdita jumps on and helps get the rest of the puppies into the truck. However, their cover is blown when the puppies' disguises wear off, due to dripping icicles and falling snow, allowing Cruella to recognize them.

Pongo and Lucky manage to get into the truck, but Cruella and her minions follow them. Perdita and her husband can do nothing but watch in horror as Cruella and her minions try to crash into the truck to knock it off the road with her and her entire family inside. One of the puppies almost falls out of the truck, but Perdita manages to rescue it while the truck nearly falls off the cliff. Fortunately, Jasper and Horace lose control of their truck and crash into Cruella's car during the chaos, destroying both their truck and her car, allowing Perdita and all of her family to safely escape.

They manage to get back to London and reunite with their owners. Roger and Anita decide to keep the other eighty-four puppies and move to a bigger property in the country, giving the Dalmatians enough room to roam freely.

### 101 Dalmatians: The Series

Perdita appears as a supporting character with her pups taking over as the stars. Here she and Pongo serve minor roles and act as regular parents, and are often seen with Roger and Anita. Some have speculated that she is a much stricter parent than Pongo, but this is arguable as both she and Pongo have penalized the pups for being disrespectful or noncompliant in the series. In the episode "The Making Of..." Perdita talks about how since she and Pongo were the stars of the movie, that they would be the stars of the series, too.

In "Lucky To Be Alone", Perdita is the one who comes up with the idea for Lucky to visit the Vandercreams, seemingly assured that Lucky will begin missing his family within just a few days if she knew the Vandercreams right. This has speculated that Perdita is in some form related to either Coco or Beamer.

The episodes Perdita has appeared in are "Home is Where the Bark is", "The Dogs of DeVil", "Lucky to be Alone", "No Train, No Gain", "Four Stories Up", "You Say It's Your Birthday", "Lord of the Termites", "Cruella World", "Food for Thought", "Film Fatale", "Splishing and Splashing", "The Making Of...", "Animal House Party", and "Dalmatian Vacation, Part 2: Cross-Country Chaos".

### 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure

In the sequel, Perdita and the rest of the family move to the farmlands where she and her puppies can roam freely and, to her biggest relief, be far away from Cruella De Vil. However, unbeknown to Perdita, her son Patch is feeling insignificant. She tries to help Patch during this time but is too busy taking care of the other 98 puppies. After falling asleep in the kitchen cupboard, Patch is accidentally left behind when the Radcliffes move away to Cherry Tree Farm in Titchfield, Devon so he decides to stay in London and meet his idol, Thunderbolt at his auditions.

When Perdita learns of Patch's missing, later on, she is devastated, and quickly rallies Pongo, Roger, and Anita to travel back to London to find him. During their absence, Cruella, Jasper, and Horace kidnap the puppies yet again. Meanwhile, Patch meets and befriends his hero Thunderbolt, who gladly helps the pup rescue his siblings. In the end, Cruella is arrested, and Perdita and Pongo reunite with her children, as well as befriend Thunderbolt.

Interestingly, Kath Soucie, Perdita's voice actress in 101 Dalmatians II, previously voiced Anita, Cadpig, and Rolly in the 101 Dalmatians TV series.

## Personality

Perdita is very well-mannered, elegant, and radiant; a complete foil to Pongo's goofy nature. She is also rather stern and appears to be a tad more prominent when it comes to disciplining her children, as well as the rascally Pongo.

Despite her well-coordinated nature, Perdita tends to be incredibly worrisome in hectic situations and prefers to avoid oncoming conflict by leaving the scene, as shown when Cruella visits. She is also rather observant and appears able to sense nearby danger, being the only one to expect Cruella's villainy even before the kidnapping of her children. A complete contrast to the optimistic Pongo, Perdita's worries can often escalate to pessimism, only to be put to rest by the always headstrong and relentless Pongo.

Even so, Perdita is a fierce warrior and will jump into battle in the situation calls for it. Like Pongo, her primary concerns are her puppies. As such, she has shown to willingly abandon her usual guidelines of self-composure for the sake of her family.

## Trivia

* According to Disney animators, Perdita has 68 spots.
* According to Disneystrology, her birthday is July 6.
* According to the DisneyLife app, her pet peeve is bad manners and coarse language.
* By size and behavior, in human years, she is 40 years old.
* In the animated movie, Perdita was originally played by Lisa Davis (who had also voiced Anita). She had recorded about a third of the film as Perdita, but got married and moved to New York City, so she was voiced by Cate Bauer for the rest of the film. It is, however, unknown which actress recorded which lines.
* Perdita is actually based on two characters from the original book: "Missis" Pongo, who was the wife to Pongo and birth mother of the fifteen puppies, and Perdita, a sickly liver-spotted Dalmatian adopted by the Dearlys to be a secondary mother to the puppies.
* In some promotional pictures, Perdita is seen with deep brown eyes.
* All but two of Disney's Nine Old Men did the animation for Perdita in the animated 101 Dalmatians, with Wolfgang Reitherman as the director and Marc Davis as the sole animator of Cruella.
* Perdita's name means "loss" in Italian. It also means the feminine form of "perditus," meaning "lost" or "destroyed" in Latin. This is a point brought up in the novel which 101 Dalmatians is based on but not in the movie.
* In some book adaptations of the film, the live-action remake and 101 Dalmatians: Escape from DeVil Manor, Perdita is seen wearing a red collar.
* In the animated film, Perdita wears a blue collar and Pongo wears a red collar. But in the live-action version of the film, it's the other way around.