Ashlee and Sox, RIP TT_TT

I have some very sad news, my granny's dog Sox had to be put down last week. Since I was already commissioned by a family friend Jan to draw Sox and her cat Ashlee, but hadn't started, I got started right away and gave the picture of Sox to my granny as a present from me and Jan both (although I didn't charge Jan for it, how could I have?) So I drew Ashlee and Sox.
Sox was a big sweetheart. And when I say big, I mean BIG. She was a black lab/great dane mix and she weighed more than I do. She was probably longer than I am tall too, lol. She was 12 or 13, which for a great dane mix, is pretty old. She did nothing but laze around, plop herself down in the middle of the action for the attention, and beg relentlessly at dinner time. And we loved her to death :) She also had a very intimidating bark and though my granny had been broken into twice, that never happened again after Sox came to live with her. She was a giant who would take up all of the couch but leave Granny a small corner to squeeze into, and her part of the couch was distinctly marked with a pound or two of black fur, which never seemed to go away no matter how much laundry and vacuuming we did. She was always excited to go to the park and get her dinner, to the point where even as arthritic as she was, she'd jump up and down ecstatically, but never once did she jump onto or hurt frail Granny. She was a big lovebug and she will be dearly missed. I drew Granny's favorite picture of her in remembrance.

Honestly, I'm not sure I like this one. I think I did a pretty good job, it looks just like her from the white on her muzzle to the spiky fur on the back of her legs. But her eyes look horrible, and in my opinion that's the most important part. If you can't capture the expression of their face, and dogs smile with their tail and in their eyes, it doesn't matter how good the rest of the picture is, the picture's lifeless. The eyes aren't just expressionless, they don't even look like eyes. They look like buttons that you would sew onto a doll in place of eyes. But I am, after all, my own worst critic and Granny loves it, so I'm happy :)
I hate Ashlee even more, for the same exact reason. Her eyes have life and expression to them, but they're misshapen and weird, and for that reason the entire picture sucks. I really need to keep working on this, I'm out of practice :(