Our History

The Shaloney Affix (pronounced Shar-Low-Nay) was granted by the Kennel Club in November 1998 and comes from a 60s track by the band The Action - "Hey Sha-Lo-Ney".  

But it all started long before that

In 1984, my now husband David (otherwise known as Dizzy) had a terrible scooter accident that was to leave him paralysed from the waist down.  His best friend at the time was just starting out in the world of bulldogs (although today he breeds Staffordshire Bull Terriers) and had just bought his first puppy - Matt. To cheer Dizzy up during his long stay in hospital, the puppy was allowed to visit and following a million bulldog puppy kisses, Dizzy was hooked and by 1988 he had aquired his first rescue bulldog - Bessie

Matt, meanwhile was rehomed, but went on to become the bulldog in the Real fire Advert

A few years later in 1992, when we got together, Bessie was (of course) part of the deal and following her death in 1996 at the grand old age of 12 we realised that life just wasn't the same without a bulldog around, and so after a few phone calls, we aquired Amber followed a couple of years later by Doza who was shown very lightly and then Reggie. Reggie was bought for us to show, but unfortunately he didn't turn out (but did pretty well in obedience) and it soon became apparent that if we wanted something to show we would have to breed it ourselves

In 1998, some 10 years since it all started, we finally felt  ready to "move on" and start our own line. Breeding was something we had thought long and hard about before deciding to undertake it seriously and almost a full year was spent preparing for it. In June 1999 we saw the birth of our first litter

From that litter we kept two puppies and call them Sid and Nancy. Sid did well in the show ring, qualifying for Crufts at his first show, unfortunately he wasn't quite 9 months old at the time Crufts was scheduled but he made up for it the following year taking a reserve place in Post Graduate Dog. Nancy wasn't quite the specimen but carried no major faults and just to be sure she was xrayed for any possible skeletal defect. We kept in touch with the remainder of the litter and to this day we see them all regularly.

Meanwhile, we continued to research the lines we were using, and plans began for Nancy's mating. A suitable stud was selected and we looked forward to producing our second generation.

Unfortunately, at this point the kennel suffered a major set back and our sweet Nancy died on the 6th April 2001, devastating our entire family, in particular our young son Jason who was Nancy's handler in the ring. Nancy took a major part of each of us with her, she had been our bridesmaid when we eventually married in January 2000 - but she also took 4 years of work and research with her and left the kennel without a suitable breeding bitch.

Enter Mabel - a dear little fawn and white bitch of similar breeding to Sid and Nancy, of course we have high hopes for her, but for now we will just wait and see how she matures. In the meantime it gave me the opportunity to put in some study and I joined the Animal Care College in Ascot where I have successfully completed a Breeding and Management course and am currently undertaking the Breeding Diploma. Despite the fact that we currently have nothing to breed, I am continuing to learn and am enjoying the distance courses the college offer.

Meanwhile, things have gone a full circle, we started out with a rescue bulldog, these days we run the breed rescue and have done since April 2001.

Call back to this page again soon, and be sure to drop in on our bulldogs and meet them all personally.

Regards - Tania Holmes (June 2001)