chasing cats

I have 4 dogs and 2 cats the cats live in the garage the cats go out in the daytime and sometime to bring them in I come in the front door and the dogs will go after them and I end up getting scratched, I wish I knew the answer had my cats about as long as my dogs and the only one who doesn't care is Daisy the other 3 will go after them.
 
When you get the answer pass it along lol []

the only three methods I've ever heard of is to 1) raise the puppy up with cats from day one. Too late for that. or 2) use of a shock collar in a manner I consider to be abusive. or 3) really work on the dog's obedience so that you can get the dog to drop on command or remain in heel even in the presence of cats. Even then, many a cat has died when the owner wasn't diligent enough.

I had a walker hound who really liked (or really hated, however you want to see it) cats. After I'd had her a year--and she howled at and hunted cats--a stray showed up. I separated them and let them see each other for six months. Yes, 6 months. During that time, I worked on Kina's obedience and I also tested them out--but Kina went after the cat on those few occasions, and she tried to attack him.
 
After six months, the cat thing wore off, she accepted him, and when I tried to let him near her, she was fine.
 
With my second stray, it only took 3 months. Obedience, mixed with letting them watch other, from their safe places, can work.
 
PS--Kina still "hunted" cats whenever we walked/ran. She just didn't hunt them. (Well, she did, on occasion, but she never hurt them.) And yes, I really think that had she caught another cat, ever, she would have attacked it.

I have known a couple of people who trained their dogs not to bother the cats using shock collars, as mudpuppy suggested.  I do not think that a shock collar is necessarily abusive.  Many gun dog owners use them as an effective training aid. 
 
Your situation is different though.  As I see it, unlike with a gun dog, where a shock collar is used to get his attention, you would be looking at a shock adequate enough to get your dog to stop chasing what he sees as prey.  To further complicate the situation, you have a pit bull mix, who probably has a high pain tolerance.  You would have to really zap him good.  Even if you could get this to work, it would only work when you were with him to apply the correction and only if he were wearing the collar.  A partial fix, at best, and abusive, at worst. 
 
Generally, I support any training method that works.  The end justifies the means, if you will.  But in your case, I think you have a situation that is unfixable.  All you can do is to mitigate it, as you have been doing.  Maybe it will get better, over time, and maybe it won't.

I'm not going to use a shock collar for the reason you said - the high pain tolerance and the high prey drive of the breed. I had thought about the shock collar and had decided against it already.

we've had Bourbon for 8 months now, and we had hoped he'd get "used" to the cats. But he still goes nuts when he sees them through the gate that devides the zones. And when he gets loose (which he does occasionally), he chases them until the slip through one of the many cat doors that lead to dog-free areas. The cats do not enjoy these chases.

Interestingly, he pays no attention to cats that are in cages at the vet's or the kennel.

I was just hoping someone here had a magical fix for me..

Nature designed canines to be predators — to chase and catch smaller animals for food. Although dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years, they still act upon the instincts nature gave them. Through generations of selective breeding, people have modified these instincts. By decreasing the effects of some and enhancing the effects of others, we've been able to develop a wide variety of different breeds of dogs, each meant to serve a different purpose or perform a certain function.
A dog's instinct to chase and catch something is called his “prey drive.” Throw a stuffed toy for a puppy and watch his prey drive in action as he chases it, catches it, then shakes it to “kill” it. Breeds and individual dogs vary in the intensity of their prey drives. Breeds created specifically for killing other animals — most terriers, for example, were intended to kill rats — have very high prey drives.
In other breeds, the prey drive has been altered to suit an entirely different purpose. In the Border Collie, a herding breed, the instinct to chase and catch animals has been modified to chase and gather them together. Prey drive can also be modified by training. Drug sniffing and arson detection dogs have high prey drives that have been redirected toward objects - these dogs are taught that illegal drugs and fire accelerants are “prey.” Although we think of the Greyhound as a racing dog, it was originally bred for hunting, using its great speed to chase down hares and other fast creatures. Consequently, it has a high prey drive and is inclined to chase cats.
There are several effective ways to train a dog with a high prey drive to live peacefully with cats or other small pets. I prefer to teach these dogs that cats are off limits altogether and are not to be disturbed. Using a friend or family member to help you, set up several short daily training sessions. With the dog wearing a training collar and leash, put him on a sit/stay beside you. Have your friend hold the cat on the other side of the room. Your dog will probably be very curious and even excited at seeing the cat, but insist that he remain in the sit/stay position. Praise your dog for sitting calmly.
Have your friend bring the cat a few steps closer. If your dog continues to stay quietly at your side, wonderful! Praise him for it. If he tries to lunge at the cat, though, give him a stern, fierce-sounding “NO! LEAVE IT!” along with a short, sharp jerk on the lead and put him back in the sit-stay position. As soon as he is sitting calmly again, praise him sincerely. Continue bringing the cat closer, a few feet at a time, repeating the corrections as needed and making sure to praise the dog when he sits quietly and ignores the cat. Have patience — depending on the intensity of your dog, you might only be able to gain a few feet each session.
When your dog is able to sit calmly even when the cat is right next to him, you're ready to proceed to the next step. Release the dog from his sit/stay and let him walk around the room with the cat present. Leave his lead on so you can easily catch him and give the necessary correction if he gives any sign of wanting to chase the cat. Your supervision at this point is critical - to be effective, you must be able to correct the dog each and every time he even thinks about going after the cat. If he's allowed to chase her, even once, he'll want to try it again and you'll have to start your training over from the beginning.
Some dogs learn quickly, others may take weeks to become trustworthy around cats. Until you're sure the dog will remember his training, don't leave them together unsupervised!
A Siberian Husky owner combined a dog crate with the “LEAVE IT!” command to help introduce her cats and dogs. Sometimes the dog was crated with the cat free in the room, at other times, the cat was crated while the dog was free. The dog was allowed to investigate the cat but not to harass or bark at it.
Another owner uses a technique that's often practiced to help dogs adjust to a new baby in the household. By giving the dog extra attention and even special treats when the cat (or baby) is in the room, the dog soon learns that having the cat around means very good things are going to happen to him!

I have two dogs and 2 cats and they all live together peacefully. [] In my situation, the dogs came first. We have a 12 year old lab who was 8 years old when we adopted our first cat. At the time we also had a Dal who was also 8 years old and a notorious cat chaser. I took in our first kitty thinking there was no way this would work, but I was happily surprised. When first introducing the cat we put both dogs outside for a bit while the cat (Freddie) roamed the house. We then brought the dogs inside an put them on leash and put them in a sit-stay. Freddie was a barn kitten so he was pretty fearless and would walk righ up to my Dal. The first time Reese (Dal) tried to snap at him. I told him to "leave it" (he was already familiar with "leave it") and put him back in a sit. After a while the dogs were allowed to roam around with thier leashes. Within a few hours the dogs lost interest. Sometimes Reese would try and snap at Freddie when Freddie moved too quickly or jumped off the furniture, but a would tell him to "leave it" and he would. My dogs normally don't wear collars but during this period they kept their collars on just in case. After some time we were able to leave all animals free in the house unsupervised without issue.

After a couple of years we ended up with a second cat, Rocky, a stray that found his way to our back door. After Reese passed away we got Dasher, a JRT. One of my main reservations about getting a JRT was the safety of our cats. Dasher was 4 months when we got him. Again, I was diligent with his training, instilling "leave it" under all conditions. Dasher will try and "play" with the cats when they race around the house or the cats will want to play with Dasher. I pretty much nip that in the bud and either tell Dasher to leave it or just call him to me and give him a toy or something else to occupy him. Dasher will never be left unsupervised with the cats, period. Its something I will never take a chance on. When we are not home Dasher is in his crate and the cats have a areas of the house where the dogs can't get to them.

I will say that any restraint that Dasher has on our indoor cats would not apply to outdoor cats. I would imagine he would eagerly go after a strange cat that would wander into the yard.

Good Luck!

Luvmyswissy's (sorry don't know your name!) advice is very good and very similar to what I was going to post, which is a link to a local animal shelter's website that includes information on how to introduce cats to dogs. 
 
The only modification I would use, is to initally use one of your cats that is braver around dogs (if you have one).  The less the cat runs from the dog, the easier this is going to be. 
 
And like others have said, you may not be able to train your dog out of this, what with his high prey drive.  And dogs don't generalize well, so if your dog does become better with your cats, he probably will still chase other cats he is not familiar with...

This is really good advice. It seems very labor-intensive but I think I will start this desensitizing/redirecting program. Maybe it will help a little.

I figure he will still chase other cats but since he's an indoor dog, and I DO NOT plan to get any more cats, I think we're ok there.

ORIGINAL: BourbonSt

I'm not going to use a shock collar for the reason you said - the high pain tolerance and the high prey drive of the breed. I had thought about the shock collar and had decided against it already.

we've had Bourbon for 8 months now, and we had hoped he'd get "used" to the cats. But he still goes nuts when he sees them through the gate that devides the zones. And when he gets loose (which he does occasionally), he chases them until the slip through one of the many cat doors that lead to dog-free areas. The cats do not enjoy these chases.

Interestingly, he pays no attention to cats that are in cages at the vet's or the kennel.

I was just hoping someone here had a magical fix for me..

I don't know your dog, but I DO know your dog is a pit mix. They almost NEVER get along with cats. I couldn't keep a stray kitten because I own a pit mix and I KNOW (almost for a fact) that she'd have killed him. I didn't want to risk putting her in a situation where I could possibly be upset with her, you know?

I don't have any advice for you, it'll be a difficult road to a cat tolerant dog, but I wish you luck.
Also, he might not have bothered the cats in cages at the vet's because A.) he might've been to frightened (if he gets scared at the vet's like some dogs) to bother with them or, B.) your cats are on HIS property.

This is a tough one and I commend you on trying to make this work for all pets involved.  []    In greyhounds (and other sighthounds) at least some dogs are never cat tolerant no matter how hard you try because the prey drive is too instinctally ingrained. Some can be cat trainable with patience and time while others have no problems from the very beginning.
 
I don't have any real answers for you on how to make them get along but I can give you the following advice:
 
**Always look at what is fair to all pets. If the cats are living in constant fear, and you can't seem to get that to change then out of fairness to the cat you need to consider a different situation    
 
**Same thing goes for the dog, if he is anxious all the time because he can't get to the cat, then that is not healthy for your pup, so you may need a different living situation for 1 of them.  
 
**Even if all seems to have resolved itself NEVER let down your guard and immediatly correct any inappropriate behavior you .
 
**If things seem to be going well, NEVER let you cat and dog get near one another in an outside environmnet and never let your dog have contact with any outside cats. Plenty of greyhound owners have had no problems with their cats and dogs until one day they were outside in the yard together and being outside completely changed the way the dog viewed the cat and the cats were attacked and in many cases killed.   
 
My stepson had a sweet pit chow mix that we were trying to acclimate to the cats to come live with us for awhile, but unfortunaltely her instincts were too strong and my cats were terrified so aftera lot of work we had to make the decision to not keep her. We also brought  a greyhound home who we thought was "cat tolerant" but the dog wanted to "play" with the cats and one of them got so scared he lost bowel control and then ran upstairs to hide. We couldn't get him out of our closet for days. We had to make the tough decision that we weren't the best home for her and that it wasn't fair to the cats.
 
I wish you the best of luck and wish I could tell you the magic cure for making the two get along!       

I do not think that a shock collar is necessarily abusive.  Many gun dog owners use them as an effective training aid.

Some people disagree with that, and have adopted more humane training tactics.  Trainers are always experimenting and some have decided that gundogs, retrievers, and even herding dogs can be trained with positive operant conditioning techniques.  There's a former police k9 instructor, Steve White, who is on the workshop circuit now, and a there's list of clicker herding people on Yahoo.
Predatory drive is very strong, and there are dogs who will blow off an e-collar to get what they want. 
The good news is that, in my experience, few dogs mess with cats once the cat has said "get outta my face" with his claws.  If you think you want to try an intro, be sure the cat has quick access to hiding places.

ORIGINAL: jjsmom06
We had to make the tough decision that we weren't the best home for her and that it wasn't fair to the cats.

I have always had cats, mostly as a substitute for a dog. When you work a bazillion hours a week, a cat is a lower-maintenance pet. But about a year ago, I started working from home. And the first thing I said when I stared working from home was, "now I can get a dog!" That is not something I would admit on a cat site, but on a dog site I feel free to admit that. I have had the dog for 8 months and if I had to choose, I'd choose to re-home the cats.

But it is not a choice I am free to make. My 15yo daughter is very attached to her cats.