Not Quite wild

[pauld]

A friend wanted a few shots of her Dog, Not my thing but Someone somewhere said you should try to extend your self and try new things, I think I well leave small animal photography to others.

[Isac]

Such a beautiful dog Paul. I'd like to suggest a few things for this type of photography after seeing your camera settings in the exif data.
You had a shutter speed of 1/6th of a second. This is far to slow for the 50mm focal length you used. When hand holding your camera the "rule of thumb" is that the shutter speed should equal or be faster than the lens focal length. So your 50mm foacal length should use a shutter speed on not less than 1/50th second. I personally like to use that rule and double it to 1/100th second. Simply because of the high amount of detail which we get nowadays in DSLR cameras. Sometimes that's not possible because of light etc so a tripod is needed.
Here's an online CAMERA SIMULATOR that is great for seeing different results using different settings. It's a bit of fun as well as educational. Don't give up on photographing animals, it's quite rewarding - Just ask Alan! Next time you do a shoot, you will well equipped with the right settings and get tack sharp photos. Good Luck

[Alan]

Nice eye contact and lovely 'hang dog' expression

I'd also suggest watching your background - the furniture is distracting

I'd also suggest you get down to their level, (unless you are after a specific effect)

Manual focus is also useful as the camera can tend to focus on the nose

Good luck