Kia ora Cory,
This is a gorgeous portrait of your dog Manu (Maori for Power).
I love the way you have come down to ground level and you are gently looking up at the dog. I also love the single colour of the dog, and the clean simple background of the cushion and mat.
Another factor in your favour is the depth-of-field that that has been helped in part by the small sensor on your Fujifilm Finepix HS10 camera. Depth-of-field is directly relative to the format of the camera you use and the smaller the sensor, the more depth-of-field you will get at a similar aperture and field-of-view setting.
Now, what would I do to improve this image?
I have to say that from the actual capture side of things there is nothing that I would do to the image… it is pretty much perfect.
As for the post-production though, there are a couple of things that I would be inclined to amend. The first is the softening / sharpening technique that you applied to the image. From an emotional level, this is already of “soft” picture… that expression on Manu’s face is already enough to melt heart’s; there is no real need to try and romanticize the image any more. I would seriously pull back on the softening while maintaining the sharpening that you have applied for the sake of pulling out the definition in Manu’s coat.
The other adjustment that I would make is to the background… you have a very light grey happening there at the moment but I think you should use the dodge tool, with the Range setting set for Highlights to just brighten the background to a white. While you are at it you can just gently dodge Manu’s eye just a hint to brighten that too… just a hint, but!
Now… the last adjustment is simply to clone that white mark in the very bottom of the image and I think you have a perfect picture.
Now go and give yourself (and Manu) and pat on the back… well done.