I believe your answer is D
I'd choose this dialogue to revise your sentence:
<span>“Did you hear?” I asked them. “My painting got selected! Exciting, right?” I smiled. “Especially given that I felt so incompetent at the beginning and that the competition was ruthless!”
</span>
It feels like the option that best uses the dialogue to improve this sentence, because the other options are either too informal or just the same sentence as the original one.
The word "possessive pronoun" is like the indication of the possession. So, therefore, your answer is: Its paws were caked in mud (option D.)
Because they wanted to return to there home land