... and hardest thing to learn is patience. Any endeavor requiring fine motor skills takes time. LOTS of time. Patience was not something that came naturally to me when I was young, that's for sure! I wanted to see it DONE! It's frustrating, I know, but trying for a masterpiece with every painting is self-defeating. Though, looking back on previous pieces, you'll realize that you learned something through making mistakes. You've got a good eye for color and composition, so that's a really good head start.
The Old Masters, and the new ones, compartmentalized the aspects they knew they had to learn and improve, so they did studies. LOTS of studies. sketches of hands – or paws – and studies of eyes, ears, and noses, the direction of hair growth, can all be incredibly valuable. And when you combine what you've learned from these little drawings, you'll find that, HEY! this ain't half bad!
Getting really good at this is hard; that's why so few people try it. But you're already pretty darned good, so hang in there. Don't succumb to frustration by demanding excellence of yourself that you haven't practiced enough to attain... yet. You'll get there, and doing studies will give you satisfaction in manageable mouthfuls, if you'll forgive a weird metaphor.
As soon as I figure out how, I'll post some of my work, though my catalog was severely diminished by a computer crash not long ago. Bad words were said that day, I'll tell ya what! 
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