Here is what I would have done with these two. The kitty I just did some USM sharpening and upped the contrast a little.

On the lab I started with shadow/highlights, then worked in layers and sharpened the dog, and the background to a lesser extent than the dog. I cropped it a little (not sure that is the best crop though) and I used the burn tool to darken and bring up some details in the highlight areas of her coat. I also burned the background to solid black as I thought the bits of light showing were distracting. Then I burned the lower right and left edges as well as the dogs body a bit so the lightest part of the image is around her head which is the center of interest. I also burned out the area of her rump and tail that had a shadow cast over it.

And yes you are right, for me anyway, I do different things for different photos.