Gabriel the cheetah purrs and plays like a house cat when he is reunited with favourite carer

Daily Mail ^ | 4 July 2016 | John Hutchinson for MailOnline

[CorporateStepsister]

This adorable footage shows the moment a wildlife volunteer is reunited with a cheetah he helped care for a year ago.

When he was volunteering at Cheetah Experience in South Africa, Dolph Volker bonded with 10-month-old cheetah cub Gabriel. He spent a lot of time with the cub, feeding him, playing and cuddling him.

When he returned to the sanctuary, Mr Volker was reunited with the big cat, and their embrace is adorable.

[Texan5]

Cheetahs are supposed to be the easiest of the big cats to train and tame, and the best suited for human companionship-more doglike than the other big cats-in ancient times, the Egyptians and others kept and supposedly bred them to hunt game, just like they did with hounds-maybe some of that affinity with humans still lurks in their DNA...

[HerrBlucher]

Cheetah jaguar lion tiger they all got big teeth and huge sharp claws

[doorgunner69]

They apparently get along fine with humans:

[aft_lizard]

Cheetahs are the most housecat like of all the big cats. Its the reason why the wealthy and nobles of the ancient world always had one in Egypt and the Arabian peninsula. They become very attached to their owners and if they are raised with dogs them as well.

[Texan5]

My 3 cats jump up onto the kitchen counters to check things out, and I’m just fine with that-but if they were Cheetah sized, I might think differently-it would be like having a large dog on the counter...

[erlayman]

Especially if you didn’t live on 2 or 3 acres of land for them to otherwise exercise on.

[Texan5]

I live on a couple of acres-but no matter how still and polite they were, I doubt they’d leave me enough room on the counter to put a meal together...

[doorgunner69]

My wife does not allow ours to jump up, but they know I do and take advantage when she is not in the room. The elder Siamese seems to like to get to eye level to make his demands known.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

I want one!

[Hot Tabasco]

but there is no way h e double hockey sticks I would do that with a jaguar.

Don't blame you, they're way over rated and high in maintenance costs............

[Texan5]

Mine jump up the minute they hear a bag of dry food being rattled and the top being taken off a can of wet food-even though the food is going to be mixed, put into their bowls and set on the kitchen floor the same way it always is, they seem compelled to see if anything different is going down...

[HerrBlucher]

Agreed, and lots of electrical problems too.

[Biggirl]

Ping this over to Slings And Arrows.

[doorgunner69]

We call it “supervising”..............

[Flick Lives]

The only tricky bit with domesticating cheetahs is finding a large enough litter box.

[GraceG]

[ Cheetahs are the most housecat like of all the big cats. Its the reason why the wealthy and nobles of the ancient world always had one in Egypt and the Arabian peninsula. They become very attached to their owners and if they are raised with dogs them as well. ]

There is a theory that ancient Humans at some point domesticated the cheetah and the current population of cheetahs are runaways and humans more or less re-domesticate them every now and then...

[Texan5]

A Florida room/greenhouse and kid’s plastic sandbox would be necessary-go to the store and fill the back of the SUV with enough containers of lightweight cat litter to fill the box-clean as with any litter box...

[SunkenCiv]

[Slings and Arrows]

[Biggirl]

😄 = ^. .^ =