Rylee Vs. Dog

We have two dogs in the house, a Australian Cattle dog mix Duke, and Basil, a rescue Cocker-Spaniel. They have been pretty good with Rylee for the most part, Duke was our first 'baby' so he gets a bit jealous but he never uses his teeth or even comes close to doing anything to her. He has backed down to small dogs who have attacked him and literally falls on his back and doesn't fight back.

Basil on the other hand had a very rough time before we got him, he was starved and had a open wound on his neck when the rescue found him. He has had severe food aggression with Duke and used to pee on the floor at any loud noise, including flushing to toilet. We have worked a lot with him and he has come so far, we are very proud of that actually, but today for some reason he had a set-back.

Bill was standing next to Rylee while I was in the kitchen, both dogs were in the living room, as they usually are. As soon as I walked around the corner I saw Basil for some reason lunge at Rylee and bite her on the forehead. Bill rushed to tackle Basil to put him in the back room and I grabbed Rylee. She has a bruise in shape of doggie teeth and a little cut right on her eyebrow, she was of course crying but handled it like a champ.

From the very beginning I have said if the dogs bite Rylee they are gone; as long as it didn't involve food, toys, or her bugging or teasing them (I do have to understand they ARE animals and when those factors are involved they will want to protect their things). But this was a completely different situation; she didn't have a toy, food, or wasn't even touching him. I do love Basil and he is a good little dog, he just needs a home with no small children. He had such a rough life when he was younger that there are just some things we cannot fix. I am going to call the rescue tomorrow and see when they can come get him, when we adopted him they stated if for some reason we couldnt keep him they would take him back.