When did the idea to create a museum start? Was it an existing project or was it completely new?

It started in the beginning of 2002; we now have a permit from the council to found a museum and for its promotion we will build our pop-up museums on three occasions: the first was in February, the second is here and the third will be at our Winner show in December.

I see many nice things, but I guess that is was not easy to make an appropriate selection?

It was hard work to make a choice of what to put on. The Finnish Kennel Club has lots of materials of all times which are nice, like the catalogue of the first dog show in 1891 and we have lots of pictures, articles etc., but we need professional people to make better shows. We have chosen the help of Bessa Antilla who is working for the Finish Hunting museum.

Is there a museum at the Finnish Kennel Club which can be visited?

Unfortunately we don't have a place yet and we need to pack these things away and store them until we have a proper place to build a permanent museum.

Can you tell me something about the star of the collection?

The star of the collection is a Terracotta dog from China from 200BC. It was in auction in Stockholm where our chairman Kari Järvinen bought it some 20 years ago and he donated it to the Finnish Kennel Club. In his opinion, it represents a real healthy working type of dog, which could be an example of any breed today.

Are there more special pieces in the collection that you'd like to mention?

We have very old pieces of literature, Finnish as well as from different countries, which I think are rarities because they all date back to the 1850's. We have also hand-made rosettes from the early dog shows and it's quite unbelievable that they are still here on display at this show.

You also have immense archives of old photos and films. Can you give us an impression in numbers?

We have a lot of old photo albums, which are donations to the Finnish Kennel Club and the old pictures date back to 1906; we also have pictures from the Finnish Kennel Club's old archives; with the help of Bessa Antilla, we found many films of the Finnish Broadcasting Company and the National Movie Archives, interesting movies. We hope that this pop-up museum makes people donate interesting dog items to the museum instead of throwing them in the waste basket when they are of no interest to them.

Interview by Karl Donvil