Did you design him that way, or is it just coincidence that Lopside is acting just a bit like Buttercup from "Where the Manna Falls"?

I think it is a coincidence. Lopside is actually based on a dog who lives in my neighborhood, a GSD mutt who has one pricked ear and one floppy ear. Buttercup however was a chimera with two or more entirely different sets of genes and violently clashing coat colors. That and one of them has psychic powers. XD But Lopside was intended to be a slightly more enigmatic dog, less talkative, but no less intelligent than the others.

I didn't mean how they looked, I mean how they acted, separated from the rest, drawing symbols in whatever medium was to hand, obviously intelligent, but unintelligible, that sort of thing.

Hmm... Still coincidence =P Actually, it wasn't explained in the story properly, but Buttercup was drawing designs on bark not as a means of communication with anyone (nobody took the time to try to understand anyways) but rather as a byproduct of already entering into psychic conflict with the Hivemind present on the island. What Stranded really needed was a chapter midway through the story from Buttercup's perspective that could have shed some light on her mysterious, savant-like behavior. Although at the time of the writing, I did want to downplay her character to keep the reader from guessing who would save the day at the end.

Lopside on the other hand/paw, is simply expressing and coming into intelligence in a different way than Topsy or the black lab did. visually, rather than by developing spoken language. I intended for him to process information in a slightly different way from the others but not be fundamentally different or beyond any of them in any real respects.

Maybe there's a superficial similarity, but they really are quite different and serve different roles in their respective stories.

Ah, okay. Well I hope Topsy does eventually get Lopside talking.