My greyhounds have always lived with cats. Some have been harder than others to learn that cats have rights too. Cats are not to be chased, displaced from where they are sleeping or harassed. In fact they often learn that the quickest way to please me is to ignore the cats. Bacchus my new black cat obviously had never lived with dogs when I adopted him. He didn't want to be on the dogs level. His running away behavior was him causing to be chased. However with time he has learned to be more bold, less fearful. Now he sleeps on the dogs bed whenever he choses-and the dogs will not try to push him off.
However a dog on their bed is not be haressed either.Dogs and cats generally stay in their own bed/spaces.
Many years ago I had a greyhound Merlin who rid my farm of all living small creatures-skunks,feral cats and would try for coyotes, deer you name it. He was the ultimate hunter. I adopted an awesome dogwise adult cat-Sherman. It took Sherman a little while to establish the rules of the house with Merlin and my other greyhounds. However establish them he did. As much as they tried to run him he would sit still, hold his ground and stare at them. If the dogs were eating and he wanted to see what they were eating he would smack them away from the food bowl-and they listened.If they were laying on a bed that he wanted-he climbed up and laid with them-and they learned to accept it.
Many dogs learn to live with cats in the house but outside is a different matter.
Since my cats are generally inside/outside if they choose it is necessary for the dogs to learn to leave them alone outside as well. Odd but the dogs do know their own cats. Mine will still attempt to chase neighborhood cats but are learning to leave their/mine alone.
Sherman and my greyhounds would go for walks with me around the farm, sometimes upwards of a mile. Although the dogs didn't wait for him to catch up to them they knew he was there and didn't attempt to chase him. A tolerate nonreactive adult cat like Sherman makes training the greyhounds to live with cats easy.
