Every Dog In Cruella (& What They Mean)

Dogs, unsurprisingly, appear often in Disney’s 101 Dalmatians prequel Cruella, so we’re looking at every dog in the movie and what they mean. Cruella used a mix of real animal actors and CGI to create the movie’s eight canine companions. Each plays a significant role in the movie, revealing something important about their owners. Often, the behavior of the dogs in Cruella reflects how they are treated by their human companions.

The franchise’s signature Dalmatians appear early in the movie as the companions of the Baroness. The high-class fashionista owns three well-bred and trained Dalmatians who will attack on command. It’s these dogs that are responsible for the death of Cruella’s mother, an act that explains Cruella’s obsession and unsympathetic attitude in 101 Dalmatians, even though the newest movie steers away from that arc. The Disney villain’s relationship with dogs is more complex than simple disdain, however. As a child, Estella is a dog-lover, adopting a stray mutt named Buddy. The dog remains her best friend as she grows up and runs away to London. There, she also meets Wink, a one-eyed chihuahua cared for by her friend Horace. Later, Cruella kidnaps the Baroness’s Dalmatians and trains them to respond to her, even, eventually, adopting them as her own.

While Cruella does explain the origin of Cruella de Vil’s hatred of Dalmatians (despite contradicting itself), it also uses dogs as a symbol of character development. At the start of the movie, Estella is a mild-mannered street orphan whose good nature is confirmed by the loyalty and friendship Buddy shows her. As Estella morphs into Cruella, however, Buddy starts moving away from her, as well. The unease the dog shows around Cruella when she acts cruelly mirrors the discomfort Jasper and Horace feel at her personality changes.

During the first half of Cruella, the trio of characters Estella, Jasper, and Horace are a close-knit gang of friends who are beloved by their animal companions, dogs who help them execute heists and cons. The dogs themselves embody the low-class status of the gang, a group of ragtag kids who are struggling to survive. Buddy isn’t a purebred show dog, he’s a mutt. Wink is loving and clever, but he’s missing an eye. As the gang faces hardship, it’s their love and devotion that keeps them together, like a pack of dogs. In contrast, the Baroness’s Dalmatians are used as a status symbol. The purebred dogs don’t offer friendship, companionship, or love to the Baroness, they’re simply there to perform a service and to demonstrate her utmost control over something.

When Estella adopts her quasi-heroic alter-ego Cruella, the way she treats her friends and her childhood pet changes drastically. Cruella has less consideration for the feelings of those around her. Instead of working with her friends, she orders them around, shamelessly using them. At one point, Jasper even says, “I’ve had enough of being treated like a dog,” a line that likens dogs to servants. Instead of maintaining her friendships with Jasper and Horace, Cruella treats them the way the Baroness treats her Dalmatians. Cruella’s former friends become tools in her grand plan, the same way her dog Buddy, “(wo)man’s best friend,” becomes a tool.

Eventually, Cruella comes to her senses, reconnecting with Jasper, Horace, and Buddy, and exacting her revenge on the Baroness. Cruella’s end-credits scene, in which she gives two Dalmatian puppies, Perdita and Pongo, to her friends Anita and Roger, suggests her fear of the breed has been resolved. Now that she’s found closure for her mother’s death, she can get to know the breed free from the guilt and anger she formerly associated with Dalmatians. As for the one other dog in the movie, an Afghan hound that Jasper and Horace spot walking down the street in London, simply serves as a fun callback to One Hundred and One Dalmatians. In the 1960s animated movie, an Afghan hound named Prissy is also spotted walking down the street in front of her similar-looking owner. Horace’s line, “Do you ever think dogs look like their owners?” is lifted straight from the movie.

About The Author

Jasmine Gallup
(115 Articles Published)

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Jasmine Gallup is a writer for ScreenRant, covering fantasy, science fiction and superheroes. She’s worked as a freelance reporter since 2018.

By day, Jasmine writes for a small North Carolina newspaper near her hometown of Cary. By night, she explores the depths of film and television alongside her twin sister.

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