Congrats you definately met the challenge with this. I like this photo its amusing and charming at the same time. The dog has a very nice pose going. As for the way you have worked this in photoshop well it doesn't work for me. The graininess could be a plus if the dog was also a little grainy but it isn't. And the red being brought out on the shirt I'm not so sure of that either, you seem to have lost some of it and it leaves it a little rough looking. I would really like to see this before it was photoshopped. It just looks like a really cool pet photo that has been overprocessed.
creative processing - I like the effect - an ordinary dog looks mythic. There are odd and distracting shadows on the background. Like that superman T-shirt!