… found that the companionship with this Lab has not only helped it calm down, but thrive. This is a thing: CHEETAHS AND DOGS WEREN’T ALWAYS friends. And at first glance, the feline-and-canine couple seems an odd pairing—one that turns heads for its cuteness, if not its unconventionality. But the practice of rearing young cheetahs with a canine companion has become a major means of relaxing the notoriously nervous cats at U.S. zoos from New York to San Diego. The relationship didn’t begin there, however. Nor, for that matter, did it start on an African wildlife reserve. Captive cheetahs and dogs first became friends in a small town in Oregon. In 1976, research scientist and conservation biologist Laurie Marker was living in Winston, a town of about 3,000 people. As the curator of a cheetah-breeding program at Wildlife Safari, she found herself hand-rearing a lonely cheetah cub named Khayam. Cheetahs are companionable litter-mates, but Marker had no other cats to put with Khayam. So she decided to try pairing the fastest land mammal on the planet with the animal typically thought of as a human’s best friend. And it worked: Khayam and a Lab-mix named Shesho became fast friends. Raising Khayam with a dog “provided friendship, security, and [helped keep the cheetah] calm,” Marker says in an email. “Companion dogs act as a surrogate for cheetah siblings … It is the friendship between the two individuals that creates a strong bond, and this is what makes for a successful pairing.” In other…