Try to stop down your aperture to maybe f/8.0 or so. You’ll need more light to do this, but pets tend to have longer faces than humans, and it will give you more room for error on focus. It’s a common problem to be focused on the nose instead of the eyes, and on humans this isn’t as noticeable because we don’t have snouts

You’re asking a tax question in a photography sub. Please, talk to a professional, or at least randoms that specialize in tax nerd stuff