Valencia County Code Enforcement Director Ruben Chavez said animal control officers were dispatched to a residence on San Francisco in El Cerro Mission Tuesday evening.

He said the girl was already being taken to the hospital when they arrived.

Chavez said officials were planning to meet with the girl Tuesday afternoon, but did not know the extent of her injuries.

He said reports were conflicting, but it appeared that three or four dogs attacked the girl. Animal control officers set traps and had caught five dogs as of Tuesday.

"It's pretty difficult to say if the dogs were the attackers," Chavez said. "One loose dog looks like other loose dogs."

Chavez said another dog was caught the night of the incident, but there was no evidence to connect it with the attack.

He said a neighbor wasn't able to see well, but said the dogs were biting the girl outside of her house.

Family friend Albert Chavez said the girl spent about four days in the hospital, and has since been released. He said some skin on the back of her head was peeled back, and she suffered puncture wounds to the back of her neck and back.

The friend said an unidentified woman heard the girl yelling and came to her aide, shooing the dogs away. He said the woman probably saved the girl's life.

"They would have killed her," Albert Chavez said of the dogs. "She would have been dead."