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A California mother is recovering from more than 150 lacerations and puncture wounds across her body after being attacked by a pack of stray dogs while out for a walk. Dorrie Reyes was walking along a levee in Stockton on April 23 when she was surrounded by seven to nine stray dogs, including German shepherds and mixed breeds, according to a GoFundMe organized by her family. Just moments before the scene turned violent, Reyes filmed the dogs on her phone while shouting for help. As the animals mauled her, a nearby couple heard her cries and rushed in, managing to drive the dogs away, her son Ronnie said. “The good Samaritan was, as far as I know, afraid of dogs, but he still came out to help my mom,” Ronnie Reyes told 9News, wiping away tears, adding his family is thankful to the couple because his mother’s injuries “could’ve been much worse.” Dorrie Reyes was rushed to the hospital with 150 to 200 lacerations and puncture wounds across her arms, legs, face, head and neck. She spent six hours in the operating theater and lost a significant amount of blood, according to the GoFundMe.
I’ve never seen truly stray dogs (not just lost) in the US. It’s so foreign to me when I see them in every other country I visit
It’s rare, but you just have to hit the right area. I see them a few times a week in certain areas of my large metroplex. What’s unnerving is how quickly they can come up on you… It’s less than five seconds for a pack to come around the corner of a house and surround you, and if you scare them off they’re gone just as quickly. They also tend to be active just after sundown, so unless you’re making a point of walking around after dark, you’d miss them.
Idk where you live and I don’t mean this to be rude but it probably is. Once you have packs of vicious roaming dogs that’s a failed state. Like keeping animals from attacking your citizenry is something stone age people worried about and we are failing at it in 2026? Wild
Don’t they have “village dogs” in the US ? Basically in very rural areas here (France) they will sometimes have stray dogs that roam around a village and that the inhabitants tolerate, usually at least providing water for them. I’ve never heard of any serious attack from them here but I’m sure they can happen.
We don’t have villages and we do have animal control so generally no.
Never seen that in the USwith dogs, but I have seen it with cats. Sometimes an area will just have a cat that will bop around the neighborhood begging for food. A bar I frequented in my 20s had an outdoor seating area and I always enjoyed when the neighborhood cat swung by for a visit.
Yeah it’s even more common with cats over here. Even happens in big cities sometimes.
Some even get full vet care
Not in my experience. I think it’s a bit of an American TV trope from the 1950s, but I don’t know if those were really feral dogs or just free-roam farm dogs and such. I’ve always had neighborhood feral cats around though. Feral dogs are often captured in cities and suburbs and given to shelters. Or euthanized. I guess we’re afraid of getting attacked. Cats, on the other hand, aren’t such a risk to humans and are tolerated, despite being atrocious for local ecosystems.
Meanwhile, I just had an encounter with an escaped husky and I was genuinely afraid. I’m not afraid of dogs, but I had to knock on its owner’s door and it started darting around, getting between me and the door, and staying quiet - not actually showing any signs of aggression in face/tail/voice. Eerie.
My ex got a “rescue dog” from a humane society. She got him and it was rough but she said she was making progress. The first time I met the dog, I knew something was off. That dog was not meant to be a family dog. It was clearly either pure bred or close to it chocolate lab. But that dog didn’t have a lab personality. I told her to ask more about the dogs background and it turned out that they didn’t know, other than it was found by the river in the city and it wasn’t tagged. That raised a bunch of red flags, especially for a lab that wasn’t underweight. We broke up and I later found out she gave up and the dog went to a farm. This was in college lol so it didn’t “go to the farm”. I’m also leaving a lot out of that story but that dog was a nightmare.
TL;DR scary stray dogs absolutely exist in the US. Even in the middle of the country, and even in dogs that you wouldn’t expect based on breed.
I’m not saying they don’t exist, just that in all my travels across the US, rural metro and suburban, I’ve never see multiple stray dogs. It’s rare I see a singular stray dog, at that. Not like other countries where I see them right outside the airport. All to say this story sounds crazy to me, coming out of regular California. But maybe I’ve just never been there to see it
it’s common in the country but you are right in that they ate not truly stray/feral
it’s multiple owners letting their dogs roam without a fence
Or people who can’t properly care for a dog anymore and think the dog has a better survival chance roaming then taking it to the shelter.
You see them a lot on native American reservations.
I was in a remote part of Florida once and I would hear wild packs of dogs in the night. Kinda scary.
Those were just swamp people.
Wrong part of florida
A pack of Florida men.
Yeah same here… Lived here my whole life and I’ve never seen a single stray dog.
What he fuck is going on in Stockton right now?
feral dogs are kind uncommon compared to cats. we encountered them once going through our trash, they were aggressive but not bitey, i doubt they had owners, since it was a mix of different dog breeds.
California has a lot of coyotes