Sadie, the hedgehog, and getting up close

I'm willing to bet that most greyhound households have mounds o' stuffies; I'm also willing to bet that there may be a hedgehog or two in that pile. Sadie plays with several hedgehogs we have in our stuffy collection. After giving the hedgehog a good once-over with her teeth she'll pick it up, trot over to me and drop the now-sodden stuffy at my feet or on my lap (or press it wetly against my shirt) so I'll play fetch with her.

I try to get up close to whatever it is that I photograph. On both occasions when I saw Sadie playing with her hedgehog I wanted to get up close with my wide-angle zoom so that the viewfinder was filled with hedgehog and Sadie's face. In getting up close I was trying to make you feel like you're right there with her. Also, being up close with a wide-angle lens exaggerates the toes on her feet. In both pictures I also wanted her to look slightly away from me so that you could see the whites of her eyes.

There is that quote by the famous war photographer Robert Capa that I remember: "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." But in the following picture I'm not so sure this is what Capa had in mind:

(Shot with the Nikon D300. First picture: 10-24mm zoom lens set at 24mm; aperture-priority; aperture set at f/4.5, camera chose 1/30 sec; auto ISO used ISO 1800; exposure compensation set to +0.3; auto white balance. Second picture: SB-400 bounce-flash; 10-24mm zoom lens set at 18mm; program mode chose 1/60 sec at f/5.0; ISO 200; auto white balance. Third picture: SB-800 direct flash; program mode chose 1/60 sec at f/4.8; ISO 200; auto white balance. All pictures normal JPG.)