Ann Dunn, Visionary Founder of Cat Town, Leaves to Lead Oakland Animal Services

Cat Town announced today that its founder and Executive Director, Ann Dunn, will leave Cat Town effective Tuesday, January 21, 2020 to assume the helm of Oakland Animal Services (OAS) as its new Director, February 18, 2020. In her place, Cat Town has selected Andrew Dorman as its new Executive Director effective January 21. Dunn will join the Cat Town Board and continue to collaborate with Cat Town in her new role as the head of OAS.

The announcement underscores the unique working relationship between Cat Town, the first of its kind animal rescue organization that finds homes for Oakland's most vulnerable shelter cats, and OAS, the municipal shelter. This uncommon partnership has been instrumental to Cat Town’s success since Dunn, a former OAS volunteer, founded Cat Town in 2011. Together, the two organizations reduced the cat euthanasia rate at OAS from 42% in 2011 to less than 10% today.

Ann Dunn is an animal welfare innovator and visionary with 30 years of experience in animal rescue, government and nonprofit sectors. Dunn and OAS developed a new model for animal rescue, focused on supporting the Bay Area’s most vulnerable shelter cats, a new sheltering approach for cats previously been deemed ‘unadoptable’ by traditional rescue organizations. In 2014 she also pioneered nation’s first cat café. In 2017, she was honored by Maddie’s Fund with the Hero Award for Big Picture Thinking … and lifesaving actions.

Andrew Dorman brings 18 years of management and administration in the private sector and a deep knowledge of animal welfare, working as a member of the leadership team at Cat Town for two years prior to becoming its Executive Director, and served as a volunteer with Cat Town and OAS before that.

Cat Town

Cat Town's mission is to transform the approach to saving shelter cats, reducing euthanasia nationwide, and to find good homes for cats considered un-adoptable under the traditional animal welfare model. It focuses on helping elderly, under-socialized, and sick or injured cats get adopted — proving that cats considered “un-adoptable" make exceptional companions.

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