The Whimsical Leash

Home
United States
Hartford, CT
The Whimsical Leash

Follow along for magical moments and photography adventures.

Welcome to my world of dog photography, where whimsy meets artistry! 📸 I'm Roxanne Gura, a photographer capturing the unique charm and personality of dogs through playful and creative images.

12/03/2025

We bought the girls Advent BarkBoxes at this year to help them count the days until Santa arrives. 🎅🐾 The treats have been a roaring success — but today they opened the door to toys and were absolutely appalled. 😂🐶🎄✨🎁

11/07/2025

I recently completed Embark, the foundation 6-month interactive, challenge-based dog photography course in the Unleashed Challenges series—and I’m excited to share what an incredible experience it has been.

Embark is focused on helping photographers learn new shooting skills and create more variety in their work. A key part of the journey was receiving critiques, re-editing, and trying again. While that was sometimes difficult, it helped me understand what it truly means to be coachable.

This experience taught me that creativity is not possible without community. Growth doesn’t happen in isolation—it’s a collaborative process built through shared knowledge, feedback, and support. I am so grateful to have had the help of my husband and friends through every stage—from scouting shoot locations and offering their dogs, to reviewing images and providing pre-critiques before each challenge.

I started Embark hoping to learn new ways of shooting and editing—and to see how my work compared with others who share the same passion for dog photography. Every challenge pushed me to approach storytelling in new ways, experiment, and improve both technically and artistically.

I’m proud to share that during this international competition and educational program, my images earned:
✅ 5 Top 10 awards
✅ 5 Top 20 awards
✅ Completed all 12 challenges (one of only 56 photographers worldwide)
✅ Received a Highly Commended award on my final portfolio

A huge thank-you to:
Jason Gura, Ariane Bailey, Lindsey Denardis, and Pam Kilby
Your time, energy, support, humor, ideas, and the generous use of your dogs made this journey meaningful and memorable. I could not have completed it without each of you.

I’m walking away from this experience with new skills, new confidence, and a deeper appreciation for the people (and dogs!) who make creativity possible.

I look forward to building on what I’ve learned and continuing to grow as both an artist and storyteller.

11/06/2025

I got some fun news today! 🎉

The facility where I train my dogs, Tails-U-Win! Canine Center, LLC, made use of some of my images for their website to promote the very fun dog sport of scent work!

If you’ve got a dog, I highly recommend signing up for a class. It’s Viola’s absolute favorite activity, and both she and Demon are featured on the page 🐾💚

Check it out and come sniff with us! 👃🐶 https://www.tailsuwin.com/scent-work

11/02/2025

We’re excited for the Unleashed Education Embark Awards 2025 this week! 🐾📸

This online celebration recognizes incredible pet photography and honors everyone who participated in this year’s Embark program.

Winners of each individual challenge will be announced, and those who submitted a full 12-image portfolio will also be eligible for overall placings and some amazing prizes, digital badges + certificates for winners! 🎉🏆🥈🥉

Good luck to all the photographers — can’t wait to see the results and celebrate together! 🙌

10/28/2025

We did it — the last challenge is complete! 🎉

and Gryphon helped me earn another Top Ten finish (out of 54 entries) in the Party Time challenge! We brought Gryphon back down to the park for a reshoot and managed to nail this carefree shot of him racing around with Margot’s toy, “Pumpkin Man.”

The Party Time challenge was all about play — capturing that pure, joyful energy dogs bring to life. The judges’ feedback made me smile:

“This pup’s gangly legs, all bunched up, add a bit of humour, but also tell a story of the growth from gangly to elegant that will happen. The playfulness is great and we’re definitely feeling the Party Time vibes with this image.”

In preparation for the Embark Awards next week, I’ve gone back through and re-edited all of my challenge images based on the critiques we’ve received throughout the course and resubmitted my full portfolio. I can’t wait to see how it all comes together!

Huge thank you to Pam for all her time, help, and good humor throughout this journey. And honestly — ending the workday playing with Gryphon was the best kind of stress relief. 🧡🐾

10/26/2025

Took Gryphon back to the park with for some frolic-and-focus action 🐾📸 Trying to nail the last Embark challenge… and let me tell you, keeping up with this speedster is a full cardio workout! 💨😂

10/18/2025

🎥 I finally made a video!

Here’s Viola’s take on the viral TikTok dog ghost trend — with one small caveat… she’s not on TikTok. 😜

So please enjoy her spooky cuteness right here instead! 👻💨🐾

10/16/2025

🏆 Another Top 20! 🏆

I’m so excited to share that my image of Giancarlo earned a Top 20 award in the Unleashed Education Embark Challenge 11: “Splash!” 💦

The challenge brief was to capture a dog interacting with water — running, jumping, splashing, or playing — with sharp action and clear detail in the splashes.

Lindsey DeNardis, Pam Kilby, Carlo, and I met up at the beach, but Carlo was immediately not impressed with the idea for the photoshoot (especially the water 😆). Carlo also decided that if he had to get into the water, then the rest of us — and the camera — were coming in too! 😂💦 Thankfully, Pam — aka the Frenchie Whisperer — worked her magic, and we managed to get this shot just before I left on vacation.

Only one more challenge left in this 6 month-long journey with the Embark series, and I couldn’t be more grateful for all the amazing people (and dogs!) who’ve helped me along the way. 💙

📸

Address

Hartford, CT

Website

https://roxannegura.wixsite.com/the-whimsical-leash

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Whimsical Leash posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Want your business to be the top-listed Photography Service in Hartford?