Trixie tells all! Now that everyone else has spoken out on Roy Keane's return, his dog Trixie has done some straight talking. Here she recalls her own life and torrid times, writes Trixie tells all! Now that everyone else has spoken out on Roy Keane's return, his dog Trixie has done some straight talking. Here she recalls her own life and torrid times.
1991: I'm not saying it's a dog's life with Roy, but even as a young pup I could not abide so-called authority figures. I was runner-up in the Irish Kennel Club Labrador competition that year. Disgusted with second place, I decided to hit town with a few of the dogs and their bitches. We ended up in the K9 Club on Camden Street at 5 a.m.
Roy wasn't too happy when he came to take me for walkies two hours later and saw the state I was in. "Leave me be," I told him. "Can't you see I'm dog tired?"
1994: Three years on - and because of injury I have spent almost a whole season on the sidelines at Crufts. But it's growing-up time now, and Trixie is one changed bitch. There will be no more late nights, and dry noses come morning. Apparently I have even been seen urinating in public. Embarrassing, I know. It's a dog thing, but as far as I'm concerned, trees can feel safe from now. If I am going to be top dog, I have to get serious. Pardon my language, but I am not going to piss my talent away like some others I do not care to mention.
1996: I am offered my new contract and frankly, it's crap. Management get that message clearly when I skim through it and then use it as dog litter. Hey, what am I, some back-street Cork city mongrel? I am a professional, a thoroughbred, and nobody's poodle. The suits should remind themselves that dog is god spelled backwards. This dog, anyway.
1998: I pick up Gun Dog of the Year award at the Irish Kennel Club. Big deal. It's a gong that's way overdue. Point is, I have to get back on that big stage at Crufts. This notion of a big fish in a small pond is just as apt when applied to dogs.
2000: I am fed up with Roy travelling the world in first class while I have to slum it in a four by four crate in the hold. I hint to him that I may well quit the world stage if I continue to be treated as anything other than an international superdog. "I suppose you won't get out of your kennel now for less than £10,000 a day?" says Roy. "That's on the low side," I bark. Roy apologises for being rude, but he still doesn't get it - it's the money I'm talking about.
2001: I miss Show Champion at Crufts by a whisker and have to admit to Roy that I have no excuses for my continuing lack of discipline at the showgrounds (I got shown a red card for the tenth time in my career, for laughing at a Chihuahua). So I'm in the doghouse again, thanks to that old red mist descending just one time too many. "The more I see of dogs, the better I like humans," was all Roy said. That hurt.
2002: Disaster! My famous walk-out at Crufts, and of course a field day for the media. It's like another civil war has broken out at home, and supposedly I have let down my supporters, my country and all the dogs that ever were. I make no apologies - not then, not now. I put the whole farce down to my lousy regime: hopeless training grounds, pathetic travel arrangements and ludicrous quarantine hold-ups on my way through Heathrow. I am no prima donna, just an ordinary working dog, but enough is enough. My career looks over. Doggone.
I take out my rage on a fairly harmless red setter who has been annoying me of late. You can read the full story in my autodogography, but it's summarised in one line: "I waited until five minutes before the end, then I bit him hard."
2003: I've been out of international competition for a year now. Roy barely speaks to me after the bust-up at Crufts. He accused me of making a dog's dinner of my professional career and I cannot deny it. I always have to be in the right, Roy says.
That's me - too dogmatic for my own good.
2004: Turns out Roy has been working furiously behind the scenes, and I am back in international competition! The media are having a field day once again and it's like old times.
Doesn't worry me that public opinion on my return is split down the middle. The begrudgers insist that you can't teach an old dog new tricks (go chase a stick, guys!). But my long-standing faithful supporters know, as I do myself, that it's the old dog for the hard road. Woof woof!