dog attacks kitten

Question
hello there!
we have two dogs right now, sadie a pure bred jack russel and bailey, her daughter, a jack-sheltie mix. heres my first question: the dogs usually get one long run play time fetch activity at the beach in the morning then a bath then little walks throughout the day to let them go to the bathroom. even with all this running around if they have the chance they will still run right out the door. we have a lake and they love to run in the lake and hunt bullfrogs so they get extremely dirty and smell afterwards. how can i stop them from running out the door and would it help if they got more exercise?
now for my real question the important one. recently we got a little 10 week old kitten named acceptance. i thought it was an irresponsible thing for my wife to do because of how predatory our dogs are. they dont get along good with other dogs because of bailey being a wimp and then sadie getting protective of her daughter causing a whole big loud dog fight incident. they also will strain on their leashes if they ever see a squirrel or a cat. of course the dogs were gonna attack the kitten. we tried to keep them separate keeping the kitten in one room and keeping the dogs out of that room. of course though the dogs broke in and attacked acceptance. he fought back though and seemed fine just traumatized. the whole rest of the day he just sleeps like all his energy was attacked out of him. we always have to keep the door to his room shut because if you leave the door open even for a second then the dogs will run in and hunt. all together acceptance has been attacked twice, almost three times. my wife has tried to train the dogs by putting the kitten in its carrier and putting it in an elevated position then letting the dogs out to sniff. they still try and get at the cat so my wife gets them to sit away from the carrier then gives them a treat even if the dogs are whining or still looking at the kitten. she also does this thing where she gets the dogs to stay when we go into the room which actually has worked pretty well.
is she on the right track? also we know sadie is the crazy aggressive one because shes the one that attacks, bailey is more nervous and just joins in if sadie does. we once got the cat in one arm and bailey in the other but all bailey could do was sniff the cat causing it to hiss so we would give them some distance and then bailey would never take her eyes off him and just continue to whine so we eventually put her in the garage for some solitary confinement. how can we train these dogs to not attack the kitten or keep them from running in the rooms. also how do we stop the whining and is there any way we can have all three animals sleep in one bed eventually?

tjanksdes!

ps we have another adult cat who hasnt met the kitten and the dogs dont bother her because they knew her when the they were still puppies. why do the dogs attack the kitten and not this big adult cat?

Answer
For most dogs, which are predators by nature, to live successfully with other species of pets, they should have been socialized to them as young puppies (age 8-16 weeks).  Dogs are not good at generalizing behavior, so even though a dog may realize that the cat he knows is not one that he should chase or attack, he may not make the same assumption about new cats.  And, because the "socialization window" closes early in dogs, he may never be ok with newly introduced cats.  Some dogs can generalize this, because in puppy hood they may have been introduced to many cats, but if they only met one or two, the likelihood is that they will always regard strange or new cats as prey.
You really should re-home the kitten for its own safety,  It's quite unfair to isolate your dog for just doing what comes naturally.  I have to assume, since you also asked about how to stop them from bursting out the door, that you have not done any formal training with them.  It's a big mistake, in my opinion, not to take puppies to puppy class at an early age.  So much of this can be avoided.  But, it's never too late to start training a dog (although I do not think that you will get this done in time to save your kitten a lot of anxiety and perhaps harm).  Find a positive reinforcement trainer and see if you can enroll in a class.  If your dog is so under-socialized that class is not an option, some trainers will come to your home, but again, be sure it is someone who uses positive reinforcement, and not choke chains, leash pops, and the like.  Those are very old school, and if you want to teach a predatory dog to pay attention to you, you will need to build a bond, not make yourself seem uninteresting or harsh.  There are some free lessons online at www.clickerlessons.com if you would like to check those out.  Once you get the basics taught, you can try to deal with the dog's predatory behavior.  The book, "Chase! Managing Your Dog's Predatory Instincts" might help with that training.
I apologize for this answer being so late, but I had my vacation settings checked and this must have slipped in to my queue without my noticing.