WIP Clay Character Animation

My idea for this animation is to have a dragon-like character sculpted out of clay act like a puppy. This is based on the behaviors that I have observed from my own puppies and how they exhibit curious and playful behaviors. I recorded two videos of my puppies for reference on some of the behaviors I want to mimic.

I also have a previous dragon character that I made out of polymer clay that I want to use as reference for my new clay dragon. I want the dragon's legs to be thicker to make the character more stable when standing. I will also remove extraneous details from the character design, such as the spikes and wings, to make the character more simple and easy to replicate. The design must be easy to replicate because my goal is to use the replacement method of animation for the larger movements, while using pose-to-pose animation for things like the head tilt. The original dragon as well as my revised version are shown below.

For the actual animation, I want my dragon character to start off by sitting and staring at a ball/object. This is mainly because the character sitting would be more stable as a starting pose rather than standing due to the increased surface area of the character touching the other surface. Then, I want the dragon's head to tilt back and forth before it gears up to pounce on the object. When the dragon is pouncing on the object, I want the back legs to be constantly touching the table surface. This makes it easier to hide supports for the character to ensure that it will not fall over. After the dragon lands on the ball, it loses interest and backs off, returning to the starting position. The illustrated version of this storyboard is shown below.