“I saw a film clip where a dog (no specific breed that I recall?) bonded with cheetah/lion cubs and they all got along famously.”
My cat is the sweetest thing in the world, but if she gets excited, I can get hurt. She doesn’t mean to hurt me. But she’s a cat.
You can’t trust anything you see on TV or the Internet. And, one anecdotal case doesn’t mean all cats get along with all dogs. Maybe they were declawed? We don’t know.
If you check the internet, you can find LOTS of successful stories of interspecies relationships.
And the “interspecies” is not relegated to “dogs and cats.” I have seen horses and goats, sheep and cats, birds and dogs, birds and cats...the list is endless.
And FYI, some countries will put a person in jail for asking to declaw a cat, since it is basically taking off the finger at the first joint. That, to me is cruel, though cats don’t need the front claws to climb trees or fight. They hang on with their forelegs and gouge with their hind legs. But the point is, it doesn’t matter if a cat is declawed. If you raise a kitten with a puppy, the chances are pretty darn good that they will get along for the rest of their lives.
They don’t know any different way to be because they haven’t been taught.