I like the idea, it's a nice image, and I like the color.

I'm going to be hyper critical here. I think the fact that the dogs mouth, nose and neck get lost in the background is unfortunate. Especially the back of the neck. I would try to put that back or make it more apparent. As it is, there is too little natural transition from the head to the collar, except for the light sheen off the black fur, and to me that's not the place I want to see a dogs head connecting to his body.

I really like the idea, and I think it's doable. If you’re going to leave this shot as it is, I'd say you should crop it. I find that I'm loosing the feeling because, while the color is good, the composition is not balanced. To me it's acting like it's going to fall over, one way or the other.

I'd try a couple different crops of the same image and see if you can’t eliminate some of the black space, or at leaset get the balance back into the shot.

Nice capture, nice exposure.