Angela Sera, the 69-year-old embattled owner of a controversial dog sanctuary outside of Austin that the Houston Press wrote about in July and August, has been arrested and charged with a single count of animal cruelty in connection with the operation of her Dogtown Ranch. She has surrendered her surviving dogs.
As of Tuesday, Sera remained in Milam County jail on a single charge of Cruelty to Non-Livestock Animals-Failure to Provide Adequate Care — a class A misdemeanor. Her arrest came in regard to one dog out of the 82 she kept on donated scrub land near Rockdale, Texas.
It follows nearly three months in which whistleblowers approached the Houston Press, Humane World (formerly the Humane Society of the United States) and Milam County sheriff’s deputies with dozen of videos and photographs of malnourished dogs kept in small cages without access to food or water. Despite this, both the SPCA of Texas and the Milam County Sheriff’s Office had insisted there were no problems at Dogtown.
Reina, the dog at the heart of the animal cruelty charge, was first presented to the Milam County Sheriff’s Office — with a photograph — in April 2026. This dog was allegedly inspected by the SPCA of Texas, in July, with no recommendations for urgent care. Reina survived her stay at Dogtown but had to be treated in intensive care once a Pennsylvania-based animal rescue group, Brandywine Valley SPCA, got involved. Representatives with the SPCA of Texas have referred all questions to the Milam County Sheriff’s Office.
The attention on Dogtown reached an inflection point when Brandywine quietly negotiated a surrender of Dogtown’s dogs, and a shuttering of Dogtown’s alleged 501(c)(3) status. Individuals and rescue groups in California, New Mexico, and Oregon, have been unable to find out via Dogtown or the sheriff’s office whether the dogs they placed in Sera’s care are still alive.
The Brandywine Valley SPCA has declined to comment on how Reina wound up in Dogtown, and has not responded to questions regarding Dogtown’s transfer of information regarding dead dogs. Brandywine Valley also has not responded to questions about dogs who allegedly died under questionable circumstances, even though former owners have been inquiring for months.
Although animal welfare group PETA had offered to assist the Milam County Sheriff’s Office in June with removal and transfer of the dogs — and two ailing horses, one of whom has since died — Milam County Sheriff Mike Clore declined the animal welfare organization’s help.
In June, a key employee of Dogtown notified Humane World animal cruelty investigator Shannon Oliver of dogs who allegedly died in freezing temperatures. overheating, and other unnatural causes of death. The only animal welfare organization allowed on the grounds of the property — where ailing dogs were allegedly hidden away prior to the inspection — was the SPCA of Texas.
The Press‘s attempts to find out which dogs are still alive were rebuffed by Sera, key Dogtown employee and registered sex offender Aaron Smith, and multiple deputies from the sheriff’s office, the last of whom threatened the Press with criminal harassment charges after contacting Dogtown’s board of directors.
Dogtown was first incorporated around 2011, when Angela Sera’s legal name was Carol McKee. She legally changed changed her name to “Angela Sera” in 2019. One of her reasons for requesting the name change was an alleged inability to open or access a bank account, so it’s unclear how Sera was able to handle tens of thousands of dollars donated to her by individuals and paid for by alleged boarders/rescues, like the high-profile Jason Heigl Foundation, the California-based animal welfare group co-founded by actress Katherine Heigl. That organization demanded the return of at least 12 dogs in May.
Dogtown’s leadership changed in late September, when Sera’s ex-boyfriend Ruben Briones was released from Milam County Jail under “community supervision” after being charged with assault, a felon in possession of a firearm, and drug possession. When the Press reached out to a cell number listed for Briones to inquire about an inventory of dead dogs, the man who answered claimed to be Briones’s brother. He declined to prove his name.
Milam County Sheriff Deputy Ferguson, who was ostensibly in charge of the SPCA of Texas walk-through that led to a grand jury no-bill, told the Press in an email that he was unaware of whistleblower Aaron Smith’s June 29 email to Humane World that he has personally buried dogs who either froze to death or died after they overheated. Ferguson also said he did not recognize the relevance in an animal cruelty investigation of an owner who collected tens of thousands of dollars to provide for the animals under her care.
The Houston Press has been in touch with individuals across the country who transferred dogs to Dogtown and who are trying to find out the status of these dogs. Stay tuned.
