Thanks Kev! lemme know when you think of something...
Can't find any "meaner" bg's at the moment tho... sorry..

GCastro, the backgrounds are stock imagery I've had lying around that I've just color-corrected, and composited/color-matched the dog into whatever BG I plop in there...
The shadows are painted by hand as I'm here at work with no access to good roto/shadow software....

Also, the reason for the harsh fade is to make it easier for a sizing-split for those with larger/smaller monitor resolutions