My JRT killed any outside animal in his path buy was ok with my indoor cats. My GSD is a outside cat killer and I would not inflict that on an animal . It CAN work but the guilt if it doesn’t is brutal.
I have had sighthounds (ridgebacks) and Yoshi is a proved cat killer. My cats cannot go outside, and I learned the hard way that -at least when he was younger and part of a pack of ridgies - that he/they couldn’t be trusted indoors either. The problem with them was that 90% of the time they’d be okay, but every once in a while the cats will do something that triggered the chase and the kill. My cats get locked away from the dog(s) when I am not home.
Yoshi is now 11 and seems to have mellowed, but the cats still don’t get to go out, and they still get locked away from this old dog when I’m not home. I am thinking that as an only dog it might be safer, but I’m really not willing to find out the hard way that I was mistaken.
In your situation you won’t even have the opportunity to train that dog not to chase your cat and you have other people whose behavior would have to be on board too to maintain safety. I would say you must have another worst-case contingency for your cat other than your parents, or, as another poster suggested, foster or something where the cat can go back to the rescue if push comes to shove.
Paula
“My brother (who lives at home) has a huge lab/hound mix that has killed two of our outdoor cats when they came into the backyard. He will also sit at the front door and bark aggressively if he can see the cats out front.”
I would have shot the bloody dog. I consider the dog as dangerous and wouldn’t trust him around anything alive, cat or kid.
Prey drive does not translate to dangerous to anything except prey, and unfortunately, cats are prey.
If you were to shoot dogs that see cats as prey you’d go through a lot of bullets. Pretty much any sighthound would be toast.
Paula
This dog is far from dangerous. Unfortunately he does have a large amount of hound in him and has a strong prey drive. He lives in the same household as two yorkies, one of which is only 5lbs and has some sort of crush on him, ie she has to be around him all the time and if he moves at all she has to be in his face licking him. He is amazing about putting up with her and even when he gets annoyed of her he will simply growl as a warning. My precious/innocent Golden will nip at the yorkie before he will.
This dog was also attacked by our chow mix as a puppy (Chow mix was then put down) so I have to wonder if that might be part of his aggression past the strong hound prey drive.
Dog aggression, prey drive, and human aggression are three separate things. It’s unlikely that the Chow attacking him as a puppy had any influence on his prey drive. Far more likely that he’s just a hound being a hound. 
I’ve actually never had a dog that didn’t have cat issues. I do have a young guy now that appears pretty unbothered, but my other dog will definitely chase cats. I’ve never had a dog kill a cat, but they also have barely any contact with cats and NO off-leash contact with them ever. Shooting the dog would be ridiculous-many dogs see cats as prey, but that doesn’t make them dangerous. I’ve known some pretty dangerous dogs that were just fine with cats.
I don’t want to try to talk you into something that you don’t want, but what about a pet with a cage? I knew several people in college that got guinea pigs.
If you are going to school not too far from home (i.e. could drive home for the weekend), why not try bringing your dog with you to your apartment? Unless the dog has really bad separation anxiety being away from her doggy friends, it could be the best option for you. Although some people can’t handle a large dog in an apartment, as long as you walk the dog enough, I don’t think it is any different than having a large dog in a house. I would watch my mom’s large (think nearly 100 lbs and not overweight) lab while she went on vacation for sometimes almost a month at a time, due to scheduling and crappy driving weather, and we did just fine in all of the very tiny apartments I was in while going to school. The best part of having a dog while at school is that you are forced to take a break from studying and get out of the house for a while to exercise the dog and relax yourself!
I’m going to skip the initial question which seems to have been well answered, but I have to make the following suggestion:
WAIT to get any animal, be it cat, dog, or hamster. At “under 21” with school, life and various living locations, it is just not fair to the animal. Apartments don’t like pets, they cost money, they are a challenge when you are moving around.
Be patient, get your own life settled and then make your pet decisions.
Short answer to the title: Not at my house.
Short answer to the title: Not at my house.
[QUOTE=MeghanDACVA;5900226]
Short answer to the title: Not at my house.[/QUOTE]
+1 there. We had two dogs, one mutt and one border collie who would shred any cat they could catch. Alone, each was bad, together it was worse. There was no “gettin’ over it” for those two.
