But just after 11 p.m. Saturday night, as she was taking her dogs for a walk outside her parents' Orient Point home, that's exactly what happened to her.
"My dogs woke me up at about 11:15 p.m. to go out," she said. "So I went out with them on a leash, and I saw the motion light on the garage come on.
"Then I heard dogs barking like crazy."
Ms. Faszczewski, 61, said she couldn't tell how many dogs were running toward her, but she could tell that they were beagles. She said she and her young dogs -- a black labrabor and a labrador-bulldog mix -- ran back into the house, just in time for the beagles to jump at the back door and break a bottom panel.
"They were barking furiously, then they ran off," she said. "People just drop these dogs off and leave them. I'm sure they come from the city, most likely. They must [have been] treated very badly."
In the days following, the Southold Animal Shelter ended up with four stray beagles -- three found in Orient and one in Peconic. Kennel manager Gabby Glantzman said there was no way to tell if these dogs were the ones to scare Ms. Faszczewski, but she said the problem of beagle abandonment during rabbit hunting season on the North Fork is nothing new.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ms. Glantzman said, kennel workers would see a "whole pen full of beagles" in the after-hours drop-off room used by police officers.
"We would often see 30 at a time instead of four or five," she said. "The dogs get lost, and the hunters leave them behind."
Gillian Pultz, North Fork Animal Welfare League's executive director, said that the shelter nowadays takes in an average of six beagles per rabbit season, which runs from November through February. She said most hunters leave the dogs because they can't find them and are pressed to return home. Sometimes they come to the shelter to reclaim dogs.
Kent Animal Shelter Lisa Lewin said that the Calverton kennel experiences a similar yearly phenomenon with beagles.
"We had one last week and we have one right now," she said on Tuesday. "Hunters will occasionally come to us and say, 'If you don't take my dog, I'm going to shoot it in the head. So we take them."
Back in Southold, Ms. Pultz said the beagle problem has eased since she started her job in 1995. After two dead beagles were found on the very first day of one rabbit season in the late-1990s, the league launched an advertising campaign, calling the hunting season "beagle season."
"We asked hunters to be more responsible," Ms. Pultz said. "They began to respond over the years."
The majority of beagles still show up in Orient, due to the open spaces, Ms. Pultz said.
Just this week a male and female pair of 1-year-old beagles, named Reeses and Pieces by kennel workers, were found in Orient. In hardy condition, they got to hang outside with another new arrival -- a 2-year-old with light-brown coloring named Wilber, also found in Orient.
Five-year-old Wilma was found around the same time as those three, also in Peconic. Due to a kennel cough, Wilma had to be kept in a room inside the shelter. But even locked in isolation, the tail-wagging dog seemed happy to be there.
"She's very friendly, she knows how to sit," said Ms. Glantzman, adding that all the beagles will soon be up for adoption. "True, they're hunting dogs -- they're either crated or they're outside hunting -- and none come spayed or neutered. But they're wonderful little dogs. We usually have no problem placing them."
Due to the good condition the dogs are usually in when they end up at the shelter, Ms. Glantzman said she doesn't think they're left alone outside for very long.
"I'm sure if they're in Orient for any length of time, they'll find some garbage to eat," she said.
Even so, Ms. Glantzman said she still gets upset that these dogs -- generally loyal and sweet -- are left behind in the first place.
"It is disturbing," said Ms. Glantzman, looking through a glass window at the enthusiastic Wilma. "When they come in, they have their license tags on, but none are micro-chipped. We don't know who they belong to, so we can't really do anything about it."
Though still shaken by what she believes was a stray beagle attack, Ms. Faszczewski said she was more concerned that there doesn't seem to be a solution to stop the continuing abandonment of the breed.
"I grew up in Orient, and I've never run into that problem before," she said. "I just think it's a cruel way of doing things."
eschultz@timesreview.com