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Welcome to PN.

Nothwithstanding the loss of limbs (bottom right) and using the larger view as my source, I feel the image could be slightly over exposed, exaggerating the lighter tones. The background is also brightly lit and quite busy, causing my eye to wander and look for other things.

I would have included the missing feet, cropped a little from the left (to remove distractions), darkened the image marginally which bettered the skin tones and gave the dog some of its colouring back, whilst "dulling" down the brighter backdrop.

Oh, a touch of sharpening never hurts (smiles).

I hope my visual shows what I tried to put in words..............

Regards 

Jeremy,

You're using open shade, which is great for portraits when the sun is out, to avoid hard light. You've used a shallow depth of field, which is also nice for portraits to seperate the subject from the background. You're down at eye level to the subjects, which is also a good way to put the viewer on a equal footing. There's some nice contrast in color as well, so good job on those points!

Here's what I would suggest...

1. I agree with the previous poster that the skin tones are ever so slightly over-exposed. For portraiture, unless you've got something else in mind, expose for the skin tones.

2. Use the correct white balance. The skin tones are just slightly cool, and adjusting the white balance to account for the cooler temperature of light in the shadows would warm them up.

3. Compose the subjects in such a way that you aren't cutting off limbs (see the feet) and aren't cropping too close to the top of their heads. You want a little bit of negative space up there so the composition doesn't feel cramped.
It wouldn't have hurt to zoom out just a little bit (or take a couple of steps back) to get a wider frame.

Personally, I would have let the shape of the lady in the pink top be the anchor for the left hand side of the frame (so that the L shape of her posture acts as a frame for the left hand side of the image), and open up  more negative space to camera right. This would balance the composition, give a sense of place and not crowd the righthand side of the frame.

I hope that helps. Good luck!

Nicole