A trick for erasing white on the outsides that you may have missed, that I've learned, if you make a new layer beneath it and make it a dark color, the white will stand out and you can erase it. It works better than trying to find it on the transparent checker background.

I know there are some some fairly quick tutorials out there that teach you how to cut out images and such... but I'm not that familiar with how to do it. I would definitely recommend checking out Deviantart and doing google searches for these techniques.

This is a very pretty picture. I absolutely love long fur.