Labrador retriever befriends cheetah at NJ zoo -

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This wild cat has puppy love.

Nandi, a cheetah at the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, NJ, has a surprising best friend — Bowie the Labrador retriever.

“They’ve been together since they were just a few weeks old,” zookeeper and animal trainer Charlotte Trapman-O’Brien tells WCBS. “Bowie has a very important job here, which is to be kind of her confidence builder.”

Cheetahs are known to be shy creatures, so the zoo provided Nandi with Bowie to help build her confidence in public. Bowie, who had training comparable to a therapy animal, is able to reassure Nandi that she is safe — and, more than that, to be her friend.

The pair have been inseparable for more than a year now and love to wrestle in the snow and share their toys with each other, CBS reports.

“Cheetahs are naturally skittish by nature, so one of the things that allows us to bring her out and do educational presentations like this is having Bowie by her side,” Trapman-O’Brien explains. “So no matter what else is going on, if something startles her, she needs to look to him, and he needs to be calm.”

In Africa, dogs are also used to protect cheetahs: The canines are trained to keep the large felines away from livestock, as well as farmers’ wrath.

Sadly, wild cheetah ranks are dwindling — fewer than 7,000 still run free in Africa, writes CBS. By showing off Nandi, Turtle Back Zoo hopes to educate and inspire people to help save the species.

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