This is a beautiful pet portrait. I love the implied 'blue' expression in the dog's eyes. Capturing an emotion in an animal is a challenging task and you have done very well with it here :)
I really like the opposing diagonal created between the line connecting the eyes and the color on the dog's nose... That's a nice bit of 'eye candy' in this image...
As I look at your camera settings, i can see that the ISO 800 is the cause of the grain in this image as well. In my opinion, that grain is not well suited to this particular image. If you had converted to black and white, that grain would look more appropriate possibly.
Very interesting photo... keep up the good work :)
I may have seen sadder eyes, but I can't recall when. Nice touch with the blue color. Technically, very well done.
I'm a sucker for this one. A 10.
Jim msp