“I met a greyhound in the park and saw it running,” Nora Anderson-Dieppe says. “I just thought it was beautiful and got chatting to the owner. I said, ‘Why is she covered in those scars?’”
He said, “do you not know much about the racing industry?”
Nora Anderson-Dieppe is the founder of Sydney-based volunteer group Nora’s Foster Hounds. In 2015, she created an international campaign, ‘Bring Jack Home’.
Jack, an Australian red fawn greyhound, was sold by his trainer in New South Wales and sent to Macau to race at the Chinese territory’s infamous Canidrome Racetrack.
Now five, he is currently fostered by a volunteer for Macau-based rescue organisation ANIMA until his travel plans are finalised.
Jack resting in the home of his foster carer, waiting to be sent back home to Australia. Photo: Edith Lam, ANIMA volunteer
Ms Anderson-Dieppe adopted Jack’s sister, Millie, from a ‘whelping'(breeding) ground as an 11-month-old with an injured paw. The dog now wears a prosthetic.
Following an investigation by the ABC’s 7:30 program in 2015, airlines QANTAS and Cathay Pacific stopped transporting racing greyhounds to Asia.
“With the help of Animals Australia, we put pressure on the airlines to stop sending greyhounds out there,” Ms Anderson-Dieppe says.
“Cathay and QANTAS both agreed to stop sending the racing greyhounds out, so we’re looking at QANTAS to help us return at least Jack.”
Animals Australia welcomed the move, saying “the export of these dogs not only condemned them to a death sentence but was in blatant breach of the industry’s own rules.”
But the Australian dogs were still racing in Macau until the track’s closure in July, signalling the end of legal greyhound racing in Asia.
After the Canidrome track shut, more than 500 dogs were taken into care.
Nora’s Foster Hounds also sell dog collars with the help of Kris Farley, fellow greyhound mum and Queensland-based designer.
Thanks to Nora’s Foster Hounds and animal welfare organisations all around the world, Jack will soon return home to Australia.
“If we get there together, does it really matter in the end, how we get there, if we get there? Not really,” Ms Farley says.
Plans are now in place to bring Jack home by February.
To donate to Nora’s Foster Hounds, click here.
Follow Millie on Instagram – @millie_thebionicgreyhound
(Featured image: Jack’s sister, Millie, campaigns against greyhound racing. Photo: Nora’s Foster Hounds)
Jack (pictured right) and a fellow rescued greyhound in their current foster home. Photo: Edith Lam, ANIMA volunteer
Jack (pictured right) and fellow rescued greyhound relaxing. Photo: Edith Lam, ANIMA volunteer
