A Spotted Existence : Dalmatian lover Liz Moe lives in a sea of black and white, sharing her Santa Ana home with five dogs and a collection of dotted items.

There are few greetings quite as memorable as being hit in the face with a warm Dalmatian snout.

“You were supposed to catch him,” said Liz Moe, showing the proper technique as Cocoa, one of four spotted blurs excitedly milling about, leaped into her arms. I was being given an example of the doggie gantlet her visitors must run. If you survive the licks, leaps, barks and breath with some aplomb, Moe figures you’re worth talking to.

Let others live in a nebulous gray area; to Moe the world is black and white. And spotted. She has Dalmatian-toned shower curtains, soap, towels, bedding, cookie jars, stuffed animals and such, amounting to some 1,300 pieces. Even meeting at her mother’s house--who claims to be “burned out” on Dals--there was an avalanche of spots.

Moe herself was wearing a spotted “101 Dalmatians” T-shirt and matching socks. Her more intimate apparel, she assured, was similarly spotted. She’s been considering tattoos.

“I think one reason people love Dals is you can dress up like them,” the 28-year-old claimed. “You can’t really dress up to look like a dachshund or German shepherd.”

She has a fifth dog, Libby, but she and her sister Panda have to be kept separated because they fight. Both they and BeBee are the offspring of Maggie, while Cocoa is a distant cousin.

Just like Disney’s Dals, these have their distinguishing quirks: Panda had another owner for a while, but she was returned after she ate consecutive cartons of ice cream and cigarettes and threw them up. BeBee got his stomach pumped in an emergency room after consuming a 20-pound sack of dog food. Cocoa likes to jump and nip. Relatively serene mother Maggie once ate a loaf of bread set out to rise, and “barfed it up in little loaves,” according to Moe.

She loves them like the Dickens.

“I want them in the house, in bed, on the sofa,” Moe said. “They’re very demanding dogs. I dress them up and have little parties for them, like the birthday party this September for Libby, BeBee and Panda. I already got them a pinata.” Stuffed with raw meat, we hope.

Moe grew up scared of dogs, but met a Dalmatian she liked. She got one of her own, Maggie, in 1981, “and it was all downhill from there,” she said. She became active in dog shows--Maggie is a champion--became a professional dog trainer, started collecting Dal items, and is a co-founder of Save Our Spots, a local group organized to find homes for Dals in pounds and shelters.

To support their Dal habits, she and fellow collector Carol Harris have started See Spot Shop, a mail-order business selling Dalmatian-themed items. Two years old, the catalogue now goes out to 1,800 people, and gets orders from as far afield as Australia. They sell everything from $4.50 Christmas ornaments to $250 custom purses.

Moe’s personal collection of 1,300 pieces includes Texaco ceramic puppies and TV trays (promotional items once sold or given away at gas stations), a ‘50s McCoy cookie jar now valued at $425, Disney items and anything else with spots.

“I was going to stop when I got to 101 pieces, but it got out of hand,” she said.

Every time “101 Dalmatians” is re-released, she said, they can count on a slew of abandoned Dalmatians turning up in the shelters some months later.

“People see the movie and just don’t take the time to find out what Dalmatians are about,” Moe said. “They’re not generally good around small children. They do require a lot of attention and love. They shed. Due to over-breeding, some Dals are deaf. What they are is what they are, and you have to really want to own them.”

Moe says she and her friends have been rescuing Dals for years, but only recently organized to do it. They have found homes for 12 dogs in the last eight months.

She felt moved to rescue them, she said, “because when I’d see them there in the cages, I’d think, ‘That could be a cousin of mine.’ They all have their own personalities. They’re just like people.”

“They don’t want to be anywhere but with you,” Moe said. “They want all your attention. And they’re sensitive. They pick up on your moods. If you’re happy, they’re happy. If you’re not happy, they’ll try to make you happy.”

Like sometimes in the long hours of the night they’ll offer you cigarettes and ice cream?

“No, at 3 a.m. they’re more interested in eating toilet paper rolls. That’s when they can get in there and do some really devious stuff,” she said. “They’re very picky.”

Historically Dalmatians used to run alongside the coaches of European nobles. Later they accompanied fire engines. They were used during the world wars to carry messages.

“They’re supposed to have an inbred love of horses, but mine just go, ‘What’s that?’ Dalmatians just think they’re bred to have a good time and play,” Moe said.

Some may also think they were bred to shed. A former boyfriend of Moe’s recently told her he was still turning up hairs in his car seats, even though Dals hadn’t been in his car in six years.

These dogs wouldn’t ever be an impediment to romance, would they?

“Of course they would! Every chance they get! Whenever they get a daddy, it can be a problem. Imagine having all five of these sleeping in bed with you. They’re not going anywhere, so they have to appreciate them or move on,” she said.

She isn’t seeing anyone at present.

“Nobody’s brave enough. Though there was one guy on the freeway this afternoon when I had them all in the car. He’s honking his horn and going, ‘How many dogs? Three?’ I go, ‘No, four!’ He goes, ‘Do you have a husband? What’s your number?’ I yelled, ‘You’re not overwhelmed?’ He yelled, ‘No,’ and I yelled, ‘I don’t think so.’ If you’re not overwhelmed, you’re probably a little crazy.”

Moe recently moved from Santa Ana Heights to La Habra Heights. She had run a kennel at the Santa Ana locale, but business dropped off with the economy. She winds up in semirural areas because “that’s the only place that people will take me. You can’t move into a house saying, ‘I’ve got five Dalmatians and they can’t wait to get in your back yard.’ ”

Moe does indeed train dogs for a living, but says, “When I get done doing that, the last thing I want to do is train my own.”

That may explain why, when last seen, Moe’s Dalmatians were leading her and a Times photographer on a jolly quarter-mile sprint through the neighborhood’s yards.