Thanks for the input. This character was a pawn, in an elaborate lawn chess set according to the store owner. He was selling about 6 of them, from that set, but didn't know where the idea came from.

I was looking at the picture again yesterday, and wonder if it could be a newer character from Brian Jacques series, Redwall?

I think the head covering is similar to Abbess dress... in convents/ abbys.

So I went to Amazon, and Brian Jacques has a huge new list of books. We stopped reading him about 8 yrs ago. So I did a Google image search again... found the clothing but not the character. Most of his animals (who he anthropomorphasizes) are wild animals, foxes, stoats, mice, rats, shrews, badgers, etc.
But the older/earlier books did not have domestic animals in them, like cats and dogs.

The Redwall series from Britain is very clever, young adult, older child, but I really got into them when my son was that age.
They can appeal to any age if you like animals and have imagination etc.

This statue has an artist's signature, unreadable on the back, and was not mass produced like other typical garden statuary.
Even the cement is unique in texture I think.

Given all the anime stuff out there, including video games which we have no clue about now, I guess it will remain a mystery, unless someone here recognizes it?

You know, what I might do? Have our local library take a look. The children's librarian might have a clue. She is pretty versed on all the books there.