MOS: Cheetahs and their Emotional Support Dogs

My workday has been cut short, so let’s cut right to the best moment I could possibly give you.

Today’s Moment of Science… Cheetahs and their emotional support doggos.

Cheetahs are swift spotted big cats that can reliably run at about 60mph, making them the fastest land animals on Earth. They’re lightweight with small heads, long legs, and a flexible spine, putting almost anything that they want for dinner within their price range.

But like any animal, it doesn’t start off that way. The cubs are adorable, floofy, and most importantly, er, unfortunately? Snack sized.

Cheetah cubs don’t have a great track record of living, you see.

They’re born entirely helpless, blind and typically weighing less than a pound. Though they gain their strength with the haste you’d expect for a tiny critter trying to outrun a goddamn hyena, only 5% of cubs are expected to make it to adulthood. An outsized percentage die in the first three months. Contributing factors include habitat loss, poaching, and predation from other animals.

Cheetahs are classified as vulnerable now which is just a step less ‘yikes’ for their survival than endangered. Breeding programs and rescues have been set up for decades. Naturally nervous critters, possibly from millions of years of thinking death is always around the corner, cubs learn social skills and the art of chilling the fuck out from their litter-mates in the wild. Cubs raised in zoos or rescues don’t always have a companion for a variety of reasons. This doesn’t help these anxiety riddled kitties learn to make friends- and hopefully new big cats- when they grow up.

Dr. Laurie Marker figured “dunno, maybe give them a puppy?”
Punchline: it goddamn worked.

Marker has worked largely with rehabilitating cheetahs to reintroduce them to the wild. In 1976 in Winston, Oregon, she was working on the cheetah breeding program at Wildlife Safari. When she found herself working with one lonesome, anxious cub named Khayam, she decided to give the cub a lab-mix friend named Shesho. It worked; the two bonded, Khayam relaxed as though cheetah siblings were present, and Dr. Marker wondered if she was onto something.

So she tried it again. And again.

Now the go-to prescription for an anxious cheetah cub is an emotional support dog.

This has been your Moment of Science, planning to wear cheetah print next time I fly with my dog.

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