These things happen.

Midwife and adoptive mother to the puppies she takes care of. I thought they should have kept her, she has a very interesting backstory… and Missis was just as cute as the puppies in the book, but oh well.

I did pick up a copy of the original book some years back at a B&N but hadn’t gotten around to reading it (interesting given how the movie came out five years after the book did, that Disney was able to take a chance on such a new story that hadn’t aged yet was rather impressive for it’s time). Interesting to learn of the author’s follow-up being as bizarre as it sounds. I see the sequel came out 6 years after the film anyway, so it wasn’t like nobody knew what this author was going to do next with these guys. Apparently this sequel has to involve some Cold War stint for the dogs to leave the planet as they do. Does come off rather lame in retrospect I suppose but we were still believing that at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starlight_Barking

I never liked the live-action films personally, namely the first film simply because I didn’t feel I was the right person for it. It didn’t help when we got a scene where Roger had to check one of his dogs to find out which one was Pongo by looking between their hind legs. I can see why they wouldn’t do that in an animated film mostly catered to families but it’s not something I want to see in my entertainment I hate to say. It was easier of course to tell those dogs apart in the animated film simply because of their appearance (Pongo having fully black ears for instance, apparently something that was a bit tough to do with the live-action dogs since they really did look the same). Of course there is this one drawing Ken Anderson did featuring a ‘well-endowed’ Pongo!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I2hiCwIgXcs/UXIqn54p5tI/AAAAAAAAGMs/UiGLmP15OYI/s1600/2110_VD_54_ARIA.jpeg

Animation historian Fred Patten had this to say about the first live-action film…
“The film was written by John Hughes, the author of the Home Alone movies, and a major criticism of this version of 101 Dalmatians was that the slapstick mishaps that befall the villains are too close an imitation of Home Alone. Also, the live-action puppies do not talk, resulting in a more serious criticism of the movie being that, whereas the 1961 movie felt mostly about the anthropomorphized animals and was a children’s movie, the 1996 movie felt mostly about the human actors with the animals in a supporting role. As such, it felt like a movie for adults with a too-juvenile plot.”

That’s all there is to say about that. Speaking of Ken Anderson, one guy who’d rather take more of the credit on those backgrounds himself is Walt Peregoy, who still likes to state “They’re MINE!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrb6qEvjNS4

So basically Perdita is more like a midwife in this respect. I can buy that. Obviously not something the Disney staff probably thought was interesting for a movie so I can see why they went with the way they did it.

And yes, they never learn when it comes to these live-action upstarts.

I actually read the book a few months ago. To better explain about Perdita’s role in the book, basically they explain that since Missis had fifteen puppies she obviously couldn’t provide milk for them all, so they bring in Perdita, who has recently been raising a litter of puppies of her own until they were sold away. Missis provides milk for half the puppies and Perdita for the other half. Both Pongo and Missis come to see Perdita like a sister, so don’t worry, no concubinage involved! Perdita also stays behind to watch over the Dearlys while Pongo and Missis go to find the puppies.

And bad news! Disney actually is planning to make a movie about Cruella like they did with Maleficent!