Marja Salminen

Finland

There were always dogs in my childhood home, the last one was a Finnish Spitz. My first own dog was a Long-haired Dachshund, Zekiwa Grand Slam, born 25.4.1965 and bred by Mrs. Zidy Munsterhielm-Ehnberg. After that I had a copule of Dachshunds and first litter of Long-haired Dachshunds was born in 1973.
Between 1973-1975 a couple of Wire-haired Fox Terrier litters were born. In 1971 with my husband Kari we bought our first Norwich Terrier from Ms. Gitta Ringwall, who had brought first examples of the breed to Finland some years earlier. We knew immediately, that this is our breed and this Norwich Terrier is the breed we will start to breed. Our first litter was born already in 1972, but unfortunately the only puppy in the litter passed away before we even tried to register it. In 1974 our prefix, Porrigito, was approved. The first Porrigito-litter was registered in 1973 and the latest in 2024. We have 44 Norwich Show Champions in Finland and a dozen abroad. We have exported Norwiches to USA, Italy, Russia, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Sweden and Norway. Another breed we have bred is Norfolk Terrier since 1988 and we have bred 37 litters. Even our breeding has been in a very small scale, the most succefull winners are from this breed. We have owned or bred seven dogs, that have won FCI World Winner-title.
I was qualified to my first breed in 1993 and nowadays I am juding all breeds in FCI groups 3 and 4, most of breeds in FCI group 10 and couple of breed in FCI group 9. However, mostly I consider myself as a Terrier person.