I, too, have an Aussie mix (with Border Collie) and he used to be terrible with the cats. Second he saw them, he wanted to bolt after them. This was when he was an outdoor dog, so when we’d bring him in, the cats would be shut away in a room, until Jake went back outside.
When I got tired of that and decided to try teaching him to be calm around the cats (that’s all I wanted: they didn’t have to snuggle, but I wanted Jake to be peaceful and not lose his marbles when he’d see a cat). I borrowed an idea from the herding world, in that when a Border Collie is herding sheep, when he stops and hangs back, he either stands still or lies down (I think it’s a preference of the dog). So I started schooling Jake when I’d take the cats out in the front yard. The cats have always felt safer around Jake with so much open space around them, and Jake’s calmer if the cats are calm. So I started teaching him that when he’d see a cat, he had to lay down. He could stare at them to his heart’s content, but he had to have his belly on the ground. It seemed to teach him focus, help him to restrain his energy. All herding dogs need to be TAUGHT how to herd, and in a way, Jake was being taught HOW to behave around cats. All I did was tell him to lay down while staring at the cats, but Jake is a dog that learns off of “lightbulb” moments, and one of his lightbulb moments was when he realized that by laying down, the cats would hang around for longer (if he chased them, they’d disappear somewhere and he’d get frustrated and have no outlet for his frustration). He even learned that sometimes, the cat would feel bold and actually wander closer to him. That’s something he’d never experienced before.
Now, Jake didn’t learn how to co-exist with cats quickly. It was a long process, over the span of a couple years. All I wanted was for him to be calm (seriously, I can’t stress that enough. I wasn’t expecting too much from him). But over time, he got used to the routine of laying down or sitting when he saw a cat. It was never automatic: I had to tell him to lay down. And always, ALWAYS, his interactions with cats were done on leash, indoors or out. Jake’s biggest lightbulb moment, the breaking point, was the day after he sliced open a pad during a walk. He was indoors and he was off-leash, cats were roaming around, but it was okay. Jake was just hanging out by himself under a table, nursing his paw. He didn’t care about anything going around him except for nursing that paw. The cats, already getting used to having the dog around, would tentatively come closer, curious about what he was doing. Jake completely ignored them. Since he didn’t produce any reaction, they came yet closer. And Jake started to understand the point of my teachings. By doing nothing, the objects of his fascination would come closer, which was what he wanted. I have a couple of pictures from that day, of Buffy sitting on the table above Jake and Jake’s just looking absentmindedly in the other direction. Another one of Jake on his side, a cat toy in his mouth (there’s one rubber cat toy that Jake LOVED to chomp on, as it made a disgusting squooshing sound from the saliva slathered all over it), and Willow sitting not even 3 feet away. She looks worried, but Jake’s not paying her any attention.
Then we got Molly, who after her first couple of days, figured out how harmless Jake was (all noise and no bite; even when he’d chase a cat and bowl her over, he’d never nip her. He’d just nip the air NEXT to her, trying to herd her like he would a sheep). Jake was delighted that, for the first time in in a few years, a cat would actually allow him to touch her. Jake could do anything: he could lick her, nudge her, body-slam her, lift her butt up in his attempts to sniff, and even a couple of times, he got overstimulated, over-eager and made like he was going to hump her (I put a stop to that, as part of my goal of cat-lessons was to make him understand he was at the bottom of the totem pole. Cats always rank higher than him, and we rank higher than the cats). Anyway, it’s been almost 10 years (about 4-5 since Jake “got it”) and Jake is perfectly safe around the cats. Sometimes, he understands that he’s starting to get overwhelmed by the feline activity and he squeals, runs in a circle, then heads to a corner to lay down and stare at the cats from a distance. One of our cats, Buffy, loves to instigate trouble. She’s pretty comfortable around Jake now, and when she’s howling indignantly about how close Jake’s following her or hovering over her, we may tell Jake to back off, go lay down. He’ll obey, run to his corner to lay down and stare from a distance, and meanwhile, Buffy gets a kind of confused, bewildered look on her face. Then she, oh so subtlety, meanders her way towards Jake, arches her back and rubs against a couch, then she “notices” Jake right there and wails like a helpless damsel in distress again. Honestly, we think it’s hilarious, and we always put blame where blame is due. Buffy is perfectly capable of getting Jake all riled up again, and we all know it. Sometimes she goes too far and Jake touches her tail with his nose and spooks her (she jolts with a squeaky hiss), but we tell her it’s her own fault. Though, to be fair, we tell Jake to back up a bit, give Buffy back some personal space.
Now that Jake can actually co-exist with the cats, he’s gotten bored. When he was young, cats were a fascinating enigma, something strange that was meant to be explored. Now he knows what cats are all about and he’s not so fascinated anymore. He gets riled up when they’re getting in trouble, but he will actually play with a toy or fall asleep with 3 cats in the same room. Once upon a time, the image of a peaceful Jake being unleashed, unrestrained in the same room as 3 peaceful cats, it was just a dream. Once in a while, I remember how unlikely that image was, and I just thank my stars we got to this point. Sometimes I’m not sure HOW (a lot of it was luck and just good fate), but I like to think that if it was possible for Jake, it’s possible for any dog. You just have to understand how said dog behaves, how his brain is wired, and train him accordingly.
It’s the same reason working collies aren’t allowed to look at sheep unless they are being worked on the sheep.
