dogs attack 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 though 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
Dogs are often fine with cats they meet when they are puppies, but not with others.  That's because dogs have a socialization period that closes after a certain period of time, and they are less likely to accept any novel situations after that.  It's one reason why we often recommend that puppies begin socialization early, and go to puppy class.  It is unrealistic and dangerous to keep predatory dogs and kittens in the same area, so I would suggest that you limit their contact.  Sleeping in one bed is something that I think you should consider a fantasy at this point, and the use of "solitary confinement" is for prisoners, not dogs.  Training and conditioning are useful, and I would urge you to find a positive trainer to help you do those things correctly, but they are unlikely to change the dog's behavior if you are not there, so you would still want to separate the animals to safe locations if you can't control or supervise them.  I would actually prefer barking to silent stalking - it's slightly less dangerous, but your kitten still deserves to live a stress free life, and if your dogs are too much for her, maybe she should find a family that can give her that.  Dogs all teach us something, and I think yours just taught you about the pitfalls of doggy social development when it comes to familiar and unfamiliar companions.