THE OTAT COLLECTIVE

OTAT-WTX joins One Tail at a Time (Chicago, IL) and OTAT-PDX (Portland, OR) in our shared mission to improve the life-saving capabilities of our respective local shelters while reducing the number of homeless and unwanted pets in our communities through guardian support, public education, and spay/neuter facilitation.

OTAT Collective Leadership

  • Heather Owen, Executive Director, One Tail at a Time (Chicago, IL)

    Heather Owen co-founded One Tail at a Time (OTAT) in 2008 while attending law school and continued to help run the organization while practicing litigation in Cook County until 2015 when she left her career to run OTAT full-time as its Executive Director. Since then, she has worked to implement progressive programming to address needless euthanasia in Chicago and beyond. Heather is passionate about social justice, good books, and finding the best veggie tacos in the city. She is almost always accompanied by her OTAT alum and adventure buddy, Trout.

  • Juli Zagrans, Executive Director, OTAT-PDX (Portland, OR)

    Juli is an Illinois attorney who moved to Portland in 2013 to earn her Animal Law LL.M. from the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School. Having volunteered with OTAT Chicago since 2010, Juli wanted to bring its mission, passion, and policies to the PNW so that even more dogs in need could be saved. To date, Juli has fostered around 100 dogs and, briefly, Kevin the pig. Aside from wanting to improve the lives of animals, humans, and the environment in which they live, Juli loves getting lost on her motorcycle somewhere in nature or doing just about anything with her own OTAT PDX alumni, Magpie.

  • Heather H. Hall, Executive Director, OTAT-West Texas (Marfa, TX)

    Heather was born into a family of farmers and educators in rural central New York. She spent more than 20 years working on social justice issues with the ACLU, Louisiana Justice Coalition, and National Association for Public Defense. She moved to Big Bend National Park in 2010. Alarmed by the number of animals in shelters and on the streets of West Texas, she started The Underground Dog in 2019, which she ran as a volunteer for more than 5 years. She loves wild places and wild life and lives off the grid at the end of a dirt road in Terlingua, TX with her partner Mark, their pets, and an incredible view. She rarely goes anywhere without a dog or three.