“Fight like cats and dogs” is an old proverb that, as it turns out, doesn’t apply to our quickest land animal and man’s best friend at Taronga Western Plains Zoo.

Due to an innovative approach by keepers, a hand-reared Cheetah and a puppy dog are now the fastest of friends and are keeping each company at the world-class breeding facility.

Cheetah cub Rozi was born in February via emergency caesarian section after her mum Siri went into premature labour. Health complications that followed made it impossible to reunite mum and bub.

It was then that the zoo revived the tried and true introduction of a canine companion, a Labrador-Kelpie-Collie cross called Ziggy, keeper Jordan Michelmore revealed.

“We started to introduce Rozi and Ziggy when they were both a little over two months old, and at first Ziggy was quite boisterous and excited to have a new little play mate,” she said.

It’s not the first time zoo-keepers in Dubbo have looked to a canine companion to help raise a Cheetah cub. Rozi’s mum Siri was also a singleton cub and was hand-raised alongside a Retriever-cross-Mastiff puppy named Iris back in 2015.

“Rozi doesn’t have any cheetah siblings and cheetah cubs normally play together, chase, pounce, groom and stalk each other. All of these behaviours are key milestones for a growing cheetah cub to learn," Jordan explained.

“The pair have now become best friends and it’s been beautiful to watch their relationship develop. Through it, Rozi is able to develop those same behaviours with Ziggy that she would otherwise have done with real siblings, so Ziggy is providing that sort of pseudo-sibling relationship."

Female cheetah cubs spend the first 12 to 18 months of life with their mother and siblings before dispersing, and this was replicated with Siri and Iris.

The early relationship proved crucial, not only for Siri’s welfare, but in preparing her to fulfil her potential as part of the regional breeding program for this vulnerable species.

“We did find with Siri, when we started putting her in with males, she had that confidence, she had that resilience and she had that socialisation that really improved her breeding behaviours,” Jordan said.

“It does truly feel full circle now that Siri has had a cub, beautiful Rozi, and now Rozi’s been introduced to a puppy as well,” she added.

At around 12 to 18 months old, Rozi will also be ready to disperse from her family and live on her own. She will eventually also have the opportunity to have cubs of her own.

Ziggy won’t live at the zoo forever and keepers are mindful of their duty to prepare him for life after his role as a cheetah companion dog, when he will be adopted by a member of the zoo family.