Just one of the family

The Schupps love their pet camel Gumby - wet kisses, rubbery legs and all.

[Times photos: Mike Pease] Joe Schupp gets a kiss from Gumby, his family's pet camel. Schupp bought the camel two years ago for $3,500 at the Florida State Fair.

By JOSH ZIMMER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 1, 2002

KEYSTONE -- Camels are admired for their incredible endurance and reviled for their surly personalities. They're known to hurl unwanted riders from their mounts and spit at anyone within range.

But Gumby, a one-humped camel, was irresistible to Joseph Schupp.

Gumby, a one-hump camel, eats horse food, likes the rain and responds to basic commands much like a dog.

Schupp was having a llama delivered to his Copeland Road house two years ago when he spotted the bottle-fed dromedary in the trailer. The merchants weren't ready to sell -- in fact they swore they would never give up their unusual, bottle-fed pet. But at the 2000 Florida State Fair, they suddenly were willing to part with the fast-growing Gumby. Ten days and $3,500 later Schupp became the owner of what would fast become a roadside attraction.

In addition to the llamas (there are two), the Schupps own a horse, two goats, two rabbits, two dogs and a cat. Gumby, who will lay mouthy kisses on anyone who lets him, is one of the crew, said Schupp, a framing contractor who owns 5 fenced-in acres.

"Everybody says they spit," said Schupp, a New Jersey native who never owned more than a dog growing up. "I never saw him spit."

Joseph Schupp, 9, plays with a rabbit as his sister, Nicole, 14, feeds Gumby. Nicole came up with the name Gumby because the camel's legs appear rubbery when he runs.

Gumby eats horse food, is about the same size -- though certainly not the same shape -- as Whisper, the horse, and has a very undesert-like affinity for the rain. He responds to basic commands much like a dog.

"I'll say, "Gumby!' and he'll come right here," Schupp said.

The name Gumby came from the way his rubbery legs splay while he runs, said Schupp's daughter Nicole.

But where Gumby comes from is unclear. The ancestral homes of one-humped camels are Africa and the Middle East, where the climate is much dryer than Florida's. Schupp said humidity is not a problem because Gumby sheds his coat in the summer, exposing his tan hide.

Anne Schupp feeds Gumby a carrot in the lot outside the family's home. He shares the pasture with two llamas, a horse, two goats, two rabbits, two dogs and one cat.

One recent afternoon he watched his three kids -- Nicole, 14, Samantha, 11, and Joseph, 9 -- play in the field with Gumby and the other animals. They laughed and gawked as Gumby strutted, put out some deep-throated bellows and nuzzled the rabbits with his long snout.

"He's fun to be with," Nicole said.

As big as he is, Gumby probably will double in size over the next seven to eight years, Schupp said. No big deal, said Schupp.

"I never planned on having a camel," he said. "It just happened that way."

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