Yet to learn any words and requiring a lot of attention from parents Jayson Cuming and Andrea Box, the nine-month-old loves nothing more than a visit to Benalla’s CBD.
Jayson and Andrea adopted Valkai about five months ago, and the brightly coloured parrot has quickly become part of the family.
“This is my first macaw,” Jayson said.
“I’ve owned some medium-sized and medium-to-large-sized parrots before.
“But this is my first Macaw. I’ve been wanting one for as long as I can remember.”
Jayson said Valkai is a confident youngster and has already started bossing the family Doberman around.
“If Valkai goes near the dog he backs off and says ‘you can have the couch’, for example,” Jayson said.
Valkai currently wears a harness when out and about.
“While we’re outside, we are starting to encourage free flight,” Jayson said.
The idea behind that is that Valkai will be able to go out without the harness and will be able to fly off, but will return.
Jayson has built Valkai a giant perch in the living room and hopes to teach them a few words.
“Valkai is not the greatest of talkers right now,” he said.
“They’re still a baby essentially, but we’re slowly teaching things like ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’.”
Jayson said Valkai loves nothing more than meeting new people. So if you see the trio out and about, feel free to say hi.
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