Lovely girl & so is your dog... this place looks very fimilar ?
Anyway as for the technique..
like to suggest 2 approach here
1) Use spot meter or EV+ to give the girl & dog more detail (too much in the shadow)...but the background will look overexposure.
2) Use Fill-in Flash or Reflective material to give both subject some more light on the face area.. Fill-in flash for close subject like this should be sufficent (fine-tune flash compensation).
Keep up the good work (^o^)