Gayla Johnson walks around her South Dallas neighborhood with two switchblades to defend herself from attackers — both people and dogs. Her husband's weapon of choice is a big stick.

Even so, Johnson said dog attacks don't seem common, no matter her fears. But she was shaken when she woke up early Sunday to see police lights flashing after four dogs attacked her friend who lives nearby in the 4300 block of Hamilton Avenue. The friend was taken to an intensive care unit. Johnson went back to her house and didn't leave again until Tuesday.

Such an attack, Johnson said, "could happen to anybody."

City officials have heard plenty of stories in recent years of weapon-wielding residents living in fear of loose dogs in southern Dallas. The 2016 death of Antoinette Brown after a gruesome mauling by a pack of dogs and a Boston Consulting Group study on longstanding loose-dog problems in the city prompted an overhaul of Dallas Animal Services and a massive privately funded spay-neuter effort.

But Dallas Animal Services Director Ed Jamison, who was hired last year from Cleveland, said the latest attack illustrates why his department needs more power to penalize the owners of dogs that bite people.

"In looking at the ordinances right when I got in here, I said, 'Man, we don't have enough to do here for these dog bites,'" he said.

The dogs' owner, who Jamison said has been cooperative, was given 16 tickets — four for failing to confine, fix, vaccinate and microchip each of the four dogs — after the attack. And Dallas police are still investigating the attack for a possible felony charge.

But the dogs have already been euthanized. The tickets might not hold up because the dogs' owners no longer have dogs to vaccinate, chip, sterilize or confine. And the criminal charges might not bear out.

Jamison said that needs to change.

1 / 9Street signs of Hamilton Avenue and Lagos Street are seen in the neighborhood where the dog attacked a woman Sunday night on Hamilton Avenue in Dallas, Wednesday, April 18, 2018. (Jae S. Lee/The Dallas Morning News)(Jae S. Lee / Staff Photographer) 2 / 9Empty lots are seen next to the house located at 4318 Hamilton Avenue in Dallas, Wednesday, April 18, 2018. According to a police report, the dog attacked a woman near this area early Sunday. (Jae S. Lee/The Dallas Morning News)(Jae S. Lee / Staff Photographer) 3 / 9Dallas police and animal control officers wrangle a dog who authorities say bit a man in the 2200 block of Lea Crest Drive in east Oak Cliff on Monday, May 23, 2016.(Tristan Hallman/Staff) 4 / 9Esteban Rodriguez of Dallas Animal Services loads a stray dog into the back of his van Friday, May 20, 2016 in southern Dallas. (G.J. McCarthy/The Dallas Morning News)(G.J. McCarthy / Staff Photographer) 5 / 9A loose pit bull sits lies on the sidewalk in front of a home in southern Dallas Wednesday May 4, 2016. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)(Guy Reynolds) 6 / 9A loose dog with a collar retreats from a food source on a sidewalk into a vacant lot where a home once stood on Birmingham St. in southern Dallas April 25, 2016. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)(Guy Reynolds) 7 / 9Dallas animal control officer Esteban Rodriguez prepared to unload a stray dog from a trap in August. Animal Services hopes the five-month effort itâs launching next week will yield information it can use to develop a citywide strategy for stray and loose dogs. 8 / 9Two large stray dogs get up as they're approached in the parking lot of the Quanita Craft Post Office on Al Lipscomb Blvd. near Fair Park in Dallas, Monday Oct. 26, 2015. There were four strays in the lot at the time. (Guy Reynolds/The Dallas Morning News)(Guy Reynolds) 9 / 9Dallas Animal Services animal control officer Esteban Rodriguez writes a ticket to Martin Rueda, 21, who left his dog loose on the porch or his home in Dallas, on Thursday, Aug 13, 2015. (Michael Ainsworth/The Dallas Morning News)(Michael Ainsworth / Staff Photographer)

He said he's been amazed that owners all over the city allow their dogs to wander without a leash. Although some owners have been charged by police, he wants a city ordinance so that more dog owners can at least face misdemeanor charges when their pets bite people.

"I do think it is criminal when you cause somebody this kind of anguish being attacked by dogs," he said.

The latest victim, identified as a 37-year-old woman in a police report, remained Wednesday at Baylor University Hospital. She was moved Monday out of ICU. The hospital still considers her condition serious. Jamison said police found "a lot of blood" at the scene of the attack.

The exact circumstances of the mauling, which occurred early Sunday morning, remain unclear. Police said the woman was walking by the house and the dogs went after her through an unsecured fence.

Jamison said he doesn't know what triggered the attack, but said it could be as simple as territorial dogs. He also said that once the "meanest" dog was captured first, the other three "turned into big babies."

He said he didn't know if spaying and neutering the dogs would have prevented the attack, but altering dogs makes them less likely to act aggressively.

Animal control officers picked up a dog at the same location in October, but Jamison said they couldn't connect it to the same owner. He also he had no indication that Dallas Animal Services missed any reports of those dogs roaming.

Jamison said he's worried too many people are reluctant to call 311 or police about loose dogs.

"We could be one street away from a hot spot, but we just miss it because no one identifies that it's a particularly bad address or bad area," he said.

City Council member Kevin Felder, who represents the area, said he has heard from neighbors that the dogs that attacked the woman had run around freely before, but nearby residents didn't call anyone. He hopes to teach residents that they're not bothering anybody by calling and that the city will handle their complaints.

"So many times in the past, people in those neighborhoods felt ignored," he said. "So they got to the point where they thought, 'What good is it going to do?'"

Jamison said Dallas Animal Services is now trying to respond to calls about loose dogs that aren't acting aggressively. Previously, 311 call takers wouldn't pass along such calls, he said. Jamison said he was also coincidentally preparing to increase his department's presence in South Dallas, but he is awaiting the go-ahead from City Hall.

But the efforts still run into people who are reluctant to fix their dogs or their fences. Jamison has been frustrated that people won't take advantage of the free spay-and-neuter surgeries that are offered.

Peter Brodsky, chairman of the Animal Advisory Commission, has helped lead the private spay-and-neuter push. He said the latest attack highlights the importance of those efforts.

Brodsky, who also led the efforts to bring about the BCG report, said "this is a human problem, not a dog problem." An owner's refusal to confine dogs behind a fence or get them fixed are "human problems that we as a city are going to have to figure out how to address over time."

Since Brown's death -- which was about a mile and a half away from the weekend attack -- and the BCG report, the city's efforts have appeared to pay off. Dog bites are down, animal control officers are picking up more dogs and writing more tickets, and thousands of dogs have been spayed and neutered. Felder said he was proud of the city's quick response.

Brodsky said that while he was sickened by the latest attack, the city's response was "night and day" different from the Brown attack, when police and Dallas Animal Services were not on the same page.

"What is not different is it's absolutely nauseating to think that in our city, a human being can be mauled by dogs," he said. "That is so upsetting and so unacceptable, and so in that sense, those emotions are the same."