Senior citizen attacked by pack of neighborhood dogs

A senior citizen in Washington state required hospital care after being attacked by a pack of neighborhood dogs.  She was out walking when she was confronted by a group of four dogs, including three pit bulls, who lived in the neighborhood.  The dogs attacked her until she was able to escape and seek help from other neighbors.

There are two groups who are disproportionately the victims of dog bite attacks: small children and senior citizens.  In this case, the senior citizen was confronted with a pack of dogs, apparently unattended to by their owners.  One well recognized feature of dog behavior is that being part of a pack is very stimulating for the dogs that are part of the pack, and many normal behavioral inhibitions of a dog is lost when it is part of a pack.

In situations such as this, if you are confronted with an unattended pack of dogs, the safest course of action is to get away as quickly as possible without further exciting the dogs.  This is true even if you know the dogs from other encounters.  Dog packs simply are not safe to be around.