Can The Cheetah Be Domesticated?

The answer to the question is Yes. History bears this out. It depends on the level of domestication that one expects and wants. There are many examples of tame cheetahs working with rich owners. Does ‘tame’ mean ‘domesticated’? I don’t think so but there is not a lot of difference. Anyway, you never really remove the wild cat from the wild cat including the cheetah.

Here is some information about the association of the cheetah with people which supports the view that cheetahs can be domesticated to a certain extent but falling short of domestic cats.

: Beautiful, proud cheetah. Photo in public domain.

The association of cheetahs with people goes back 4,000 years or more. Cheetahs wearing collars are on a silver ornament dated between 700 and 300 BC. A cheetah-like cat is depicted on a Mesopotamian seal dated from the third millennium BC. The cat is on a leash.

Pharaohs from ancient Egypt believed that the cheetah carried their spirits away after death as they also believed the cat was the fastest animal on land.

In the Middle Ages in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia tame cheetahs were used to hunt gazelle, foxes and hares. One Armenian ruler apparently owned 100 cheetahs. In Russia and Mongolia, hundreds of years ago, they also used cheetahs to hunt.

The first Indian potentate to use cheetahs to hunt was Akbar the Great. In 1555 he was given a cheetah named Fatehbaz. He devised a new method to train the cat. At one stage he reportedly possessed 1,000 cheetahs with which he hunted gazelles and blackbuck.

In Europe nobility hunted with tame cheetahs for around 1000 years. Frederick II, accompanied by a huge entourage and an assortment of animals including cheetahs, travelled to Italy in 1231.

I could go on but I have made the point: cheetahs can be domesticated to a certain extent and there are countless examples of cheetahs being friendly with humans even up to today. There are examples on television of rangers being friendly with cheetahs. They are quite a retiring and non-aggressive cat. I am reminded of the snow leopard. This, too, is a cat which ostensibly could be domesticated as they also are less aggressive than typical big cats.

The important point however is that no human should think about domesticating a cheetah. All the facts listed above demonstrate a typically self-indulgent attitude by humans towards beautiful wild cats. It is all wrong. The cats should be left alone. If people want to do something good with respect to cheetahs and all wild cat species they should stop breeding and give the cats more space in which to live and allow them to avoid farmers’ livestock. When a cheetah is forced to live on a farm he will be killed at the end of the day by the farmer protecting his assets.

People like to ‘possess’ the beautiful and exceptional. The cheetah is both being the fastest land animal. For God’s sake leave them alone. Let them run wild and free. This is their gift to the world.

Source for history: Wild Cats of the World page 20. ISBN: 0-226-77999-8 – buy this book if you want to know about wild cat species.

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Here’s the ultimate soloution for those who covet ownership of a cheetah but who have neither the dedication,funds or skills to do so in a manner which confers some positive mutual benefit.

The Japanese need to quit concentrating on making the artificial slave-girl and, instead, gift the misguided lovers of magnificent wild cats with a robotic cheetah virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. I’ve had several of their motorcycles. I know they’re equal to this task. I’d give everything I have to spend the rest of my life with such an animatronic animal companion. No guilt. No harm done.

As it is I won’t ever even own another domestic cat. I’ve seen one-too-many of those turned from the “best person I’ve ever known” into a shamblng crippled shadow of it’s former self. I can’t take that again.

I miss all three. Each was totally different and all were fascinating study-specimens and fantastic companions. Now they’re all in the process of becoming suitable homes for some of their favorite prey/play items. From death, new life. Someday some far-distant furture archaeologist will dig up my favorite cat and will know from the items buried with her and the manner in which she was interred that there was a very special relationship between two creatures very different from one-another.

I miss them all far worse than any of my mostly dead relatives.

As far as us “messing up nature” I’ve never encountered a more asinine concept. We ARE nature just as much as a wild cheetah or the last damn gnat that invaded my cold perishables storage. And there’s only one ofEarth’s Children who have the inclination and ability to preserve at least some of her other children from the next pending Chicxulub and that’s us and our high-energy technological survival adaptation. The blue whale, the spotty owl or the snail darter won’t “get it”. Only we can or will.

It’s an unpaid debt we owe the felids and canids for not making easy meals of our weak poorly adapted ancestors when they gave up the trees for the savannahs. You look your dog or cat in the eye sometime—a good long look—and you tell *me* it means “feed me” or “let’s go play outside. Yeah, sometimes it means “let’s play. But I’m here to tell you that sometimes it also means “time’s a wasting—when are you fools going to PAY. If we don’t it’ll be the greatest mass sin of all time.

They let us live because they can “read” prey minds and when they read ours were very surprised to find that when we looked up instead of quaking in terror at the next episode of the inanimate-matter universe trying to exterminate animate matter we were thinking “how to we get up there and what treasures and new lands will we discover” and they realized we had the potential to relieve *them* of that ancient fear. So some of them probably allowed their own cubs or kits to starve for want of an easy meal of “long pig” so we might “play it forward” someday. If you don’t believe it then you have no soul.

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Comments

Can The Cheetah Be Domesticated? — 8 Comments

Diogenes Lamplit on July 30, 2021 at 6:58 am said:
Here’s the ultimate soloution for those who covet ownership of a cheetah but who have neither the dedication,funds or skills to do so in a manner which confers some positive mutual benefit.
The Japanese need to quit concentrating on making the artificial slave-girl and, instead, gift the misguided lovers of magnificent wild cats with a robotic cheetah virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. I’ve had several of their motorcycles. I know they’re equal to this task. I’d give everything I have to spend the rest of my life with such an animatronic animal companion. No guilt. No harm done.
As it is I won’t ever even own another domestic cat. I’ve seen one-too-many of those turned from the “best person I’ve ever known” into a shamblng crippled shadow of it’s former self. I can’t take that again.
I miss all three. Each was totally different and all were fascinating study-specimens and fantastic companions. Now they’re all in the process of becoming suitable homes for some of their favorite prey/play items. From death, new life. Someday some far-distant furture archaeologist will dig up my favorite cat and will know from the items buried with her and the manner in which she was interred that there was a very special relationship between two creatures very different from one-another.
I miss them all far worse than any of my mostly dead relatives.
As far as us “messing up nature” I’ve never encountered a more asinine concept. We ARE nature just as much as a wild cheetah or the last damn gnat that invaded my cold perishables storage. And there’s only one ofEarth’s Children who have the inclination and ability to preserve at least some of her other children from the next pending Chicxulub and that’s us and our high-energy technological survival adaptation. The blue whale, the spotty owl or the snail darter won’t “get it”. Only we can or will.
It’s an unpaid debt we owe the felids and canids for not making easy meals of our weak poorly adapted ancestors when they gave up the trees for the savannahs. You look your dog or cat in the eye sometime—a good long look—and you tell *me* it means “feed me” or “let’s go play outside. Yeah, sometimes it means “let’s play. But I’m here to tell you that sometimes it also means “time’s a wasting—when are you fools going to PAY. If we don’t it’ll be the greatest mass sin of all time.
They let us live because they can “read” prey minds and when they read ours were very surprised to find that when we looked up instead of quaking in terror at the next episode of the inanimate-matter universe trying to exterminate animate matter we were thinking “how to we get up there and what treasures and new lands will we discover” and they realized we had the potential to relieve *them* of that ancient fear. So some of them probably allowed their own cubs or kits to starve for want of an easy meal of “long pig” so we might “play it forward” someday. If you don’t believe it then you have no soul.
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Thomas Wilkes on October 22, 2019 at 2:17 am said:
F you.
Working with cheetahs or any
great cats is good for us all.
Learn to blend.
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- Michael Broad on October 22, 2019 at 11:27 am said:
  That’s your opinion and it is not mine. Don’t swear at me. It is uncouth.
  Reply ↓
- Diogenes Lamplit on July 30, 2021 at 7:24 am said:
  You’ve missed your calling! You sound like every Antifa punk I’ve ever encountered—can’t communicate without dropping the “F” bomb. Can’t debate a point—only accuse and imagine yourself to be seizing the “moral high-ground”. A pathetic wretch so desperate to counterfeit some sort of sense of self-esteem by rationalizing your own emotionally needy destructive nature. There are many domesticated animals which are just as magnificent, fascinating and beautiful being slaughtered every day for want of one more place in the captive-culture in which they now belong. Forget the non-beneficial captivity of creatures for which virtually no individual acting outside some rescue/rehab or research project can hope to provide.
  Oh; you have the innate Right of Man to seek happiness in that manner alright. But the thing too many cannot seem to comprehend is that just because we “have the right” does not translate to wantonly invoking our providence-given right is what *is* “right”. Often times it’s not. Being endowed with rights is not the same as total license Krell-borne.
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Michele Massa on March 5, 2018 at 9:16 pm said:
Did they shave this poor enslaved animal’s chest? It does not look natural. He looks either drugged or depressed or both.
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Michele Massa on March 5, 2018 at 9:14 pm said:
The cheetah hanging his head and skinny may not agree with how great this is.
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Dee (Florida) on March 5, 2018 at 12:17 am said:
The thought of domesticating any big cat should never even cross our minds. But, humans just can’t seem to keep their hands out of nature and messing it all up. To confine and attempt to alter any cats’ natural state is abusive and, basically, cripples them. It puts them in the position of not belonging anywhere. They can’t be fully tamed and can’t return to the wild.
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Rudolph Furtado on March 3, 2018 at 1:28 am said:
A “BEHIND THE SCENES” tour of “U.W.E.C(Uganda Wildlife Education Centre)” where a few of us tourists got to view and interact with some of the domesticated rescue animals in this large wildlife park in Entebbe in Uganda.Entering the cage of full grown Cheetah “PIAN” was the highlight of this guided tour and he was more predictable in behaviour than my 9 year old domestic cat “Matata” back home in Mumbai.Cheetahs should not be domesticated like cat’s but preserved in their natural environment in the African Savanaah plains.Once common in India and a favourite pet of Indian Royalty they are totally extinct in the sub-continent and now even getting extinct in certain parts of Africa which is their last wildlife refuge besides enclosed protected zoo’s.Posted a photo of “Pian” the cheetah whom i petted akin to a cat !
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