VIDEO: Furry friends become zoo star attraction

MOSELEY — On the surface, sticking a cheetah and a Labrador retriever together sounds like either the beginning of a children’s cartoon or the recipe for a particularly graphic National Geographic special.

Instead though, it’s resulted in one of the Metro Richmond Zoo’s biggest attractions in the last year.

Kumbali, a cheetah, and Kago, a golden retriever mix, have shared an enclosure together at the Metro Richmond Zoo for the past year and celebrated their first birthday together on May 12.

“They’ve been a wildly popular attraction here,” said Melissa Andelin, a Metro Richmond Zoo employee. “It's between our dynamic duo and the cheetah babies for what our biggest draw in the last year has been.”

One only needs to watch the crowds of schoolchildren at the zoo enthralled watching Kumbali and Kago play together to see this in action.

This unlikely friendship between a cheetah and a dog had an equally unlikely beginning — with a sick cheetah cub who couldn’t eat.

Kumbali was one of three cheetah cubs born at the zoo last May, and he was raised by staff after the cub began losing weight because of nursing issues with his mother. When the cheetah cub still failed to respond, zookeepers turned to an unconventional solution.

They got Kumbali a puppy.

“It wasn’t a new idea - using dogs as companion animals has been done for over 30 years,” said Andelin. “The San Diego Zoo pioneered this years ago, and this was in the back of our minds as we went through with it.”

They found Kumbali his eventual companion in Kago, a then 10-week-old puppy they rescued from a high-kill shelter in Alabama. Golden retrievers like Kago are well suited as companion animals because of their temperament and playful nature. Andelin, who helped raise both of them, said the first meeting last July was something special.

“The first time they met each other, they were kind of nervous, but after about 5-10 minutes, they just hit it off,” said Andelin. “They’ve been inseparable ever since.”

As for fears that the cheetah might eventually turn on the dog in front of a group of school children? It’s a simple matter of nurture vs. nature.

“The two have grown up together, they play together like any other cubs or puppies would, and the only time we have to separate the two is when they eat - Kago eats Kumbali’s food,” said Andelin. “They actually get nervous when they aren’t together, and will pace in the enclosure waiting for the other one to come back.”

If there is any lesson the zoo hopes people learn from Zumbali and Kago’s unlikely friendship - aside of course from coming to visit them at the Metro Richmond Zoo - it's to support animal rescue and wildlife conservation.

“Cheetahs have declined dramatically in the wild over the past hundred years, and dogs like Kago are put to sleep everyday,” said Andelin. “If a cheetah and a golden retriever can take care of each other, why can’t we?”

• Sean CW Korsgaard can be reached at skorsgaard@progress-index.com or 804-722-5172.