First Attempt at Action Shots

This morning I snapped a few quick shots of my dog while outside. I was using my XTi on manual mode (I'm mostly learning as I go here) and my 55-250 Canon lens. I had trouble getting the moving object (Ruby) in focus, since the background was instead. I am very new to photography so was wondering what I should do differently next time. Is the exposure ok? The highlights are blown as far as I can tell, but I don't know how to correct them. I was using one shot, center focus. The only thing I did to these was crop a tiny bit.

1/2000, ISO 800, f6.3

All 3 shots are overexposed and show insufficient detail or texture in the highlights.

The clipping is not severe, and if it were shot in RAW, there would be the strong possibility of recovery of the lost detail.

In my view, when you're doing action shots, you need all the help from the camera that you can get. One shot freezes the focus when you partially depress the shutter release. Your dog was moving toward you at that moment. So when the shutter released, the camera was focusing behind him. Put autofocus on AI Servo, which will track the subject. I would also use aperture mode with aperture set at f/8.0 if you want depth of field, or exposure mode (Tv) at a high setting if you want to freeze the action. You might have to up your ISO to get the right combination. If he's still coming out too blown out, drop the exposure adjustment by an f-stop (if you have it). The problem with manual mode when you're tracking is that the camera may experience varying levels of light as you pan. So your original exposure setting may not hold. That's my two cents.

Thank you both very much for the advice. I will do what you suggested next time I'm taking pictures of her.