I'm trying to set up my dining room near the sleeping area, a few z-levels down from most of my workshops. I can't get my tables down there, though. The way down is a spiral ramp. Do I need to put in a staircase or something?
I don't understand what you mean. What happens when you try to build the tables there? If the dwarves can walk there at all, they can carry a table there too. Maybe you've done something with burrows that is preventing the dwarves from getting there, or your ramps aren't actually usable. It would help if we knew what error message you were seeing.
two questions:
1) Is having both the animals(dogs and cats for a consistent example) on the default embark be the same gender intentional?
You choose the sex of the animals you embark with, when you select them from the "Items" screen (Tab from the Dwarves screen) during the "Prepare carefully" part.
They dump their worn clothes in exchange for better non warn stuff, if theres nothing better they'll put worn stuff on untill it's completely tattered. Then it rots once it's in teh refuse pile.
"Dump" is misleading here. When a dwarf's currently equipped clothing article is worn ("x" or worse), she will try to claim a replacement piece, if a non-worn replacement is available. If that happens, she will
drop the worn article on the ground wherever she happens to be standing at the moment she realizes the new article is available. Both the item she dropped, and the new item which could be anywhere on the entire map, are now owned by her. If there is a path to the new item, she will attempt to go there, pick it up, and equip it. (I'm not actually sure what happens if there is no path.)
The dropped-but-still-owned clothing will sit there until moved, or until its state changes. Its state changes will depend partly on where it happened to be dropped. If it's in the dwarf's room (any room assigned to the dwarf), then it will typically stay there forever. She will never wear it again (unless she's extremely desperate, perhaps -- all other clothing is even more worn?). If one of her rooms has a cabinet, she may move it into the cabinet. Nobody else is allowed to touch it, at all, except to nudge it slightly to one side when building a construction or a workshop.
If it's not in the dwarf's room, then one of two things can happen: either she can do a "Store owned item" job, and move it to her room (this requires an open floor space, or a cabinet), or if enough time passes without that occurring, the item will lose its ownership and become fortress property. At that point, other dwarves can claim it as their own, or dump it, or stockpile it, or bring it to the depot.