This is more a blur portrait than soft focus,edges are not preserved and eyes are too dark! Background has too many things going on (books ,furniture),4 from me and next time will be better! :-)
personally i think most photos of animals are boring, although close ups of animals are more appealing. maybe a close up of the face alone with a flat colour background. might have been a good portrait.
Great lighting and color. Wish his paw wasn't cut off there on the left. :( Other then that....I like this very much. It's very good. Good luck in the challenge.
This would have been a great photo if the right paw wasn't cropped out, and the books were more out of focus using a DOF as the soft focus.. the books are distracting.. but it's a nice photo