Many animals grace Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The Cheshire Cat has been mentioned before but there is another cat who, while she doesn’t appear in person in the Alice books, is never quite off Alice’s mind. That cat is Dinah, Alice’s pet kitty.
When Alice meets a mouse early in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, she finds herself talking about Dinah-oops! When Alice is falling through the Rabbit Hole, she wonders if Dinah could catch bats instead of birds as she also falls through the air.
Alice also worries that Dinah will miss the saucer of milk that Alice always gives her because it seems to Alice that she may not be back from her adventures by tea-time. And speaking of tea-time, in the “Mad Tea Party” sequence, Alice mentions Dinah, which causes the Dormouse to be rather scared.
Some folks think the Cheshire Cat is merely a projection of Dinah in the dream world of Wonderland. The Cheshire Cat, however, is both male and weird.
In Through the Looking Glass, Dinah seems to have left Alice with two kittens, one called\ Kitty (black) and one called Snowdrop (white). Despite her amusement at playing with these kitties, Alice is lured to the Looking Glass to find out what’s on the other side.
The Disney animated film Alice in Wonderland, which combines episodes from both books, features Dinah as a red kitten, who almost falls into the Rabbit Hole after Alice. Disney’s Dinah has a crown of flowers and a white underbelly that resembles a bib, as if she is ready for that saucer of milk. Plush versions of the Disney Dinah are available online.