Great Escapes!

Looking for interesting Chameleons Escape stories! Come on everyone has experienced that " you turned your back and your Cham was gone!" The Scare that gave you that inside confused/scared feeling? So lets hear it no matter how intricate or insignificant! lets hear it for good reading sake? I'll start this off.

Years ago I had a female Vield "Athena" she was friendly and very awsome around people. So I free ranged her around the house. For the pure enjoyment of how she loved to interact with us. Well kicking back on a warm summer day, I left the door open and placed a 3 foot tall piece of plexiglass securely in the opening. She loved to look out.
I accidentally dozed off on the couch, suddenly bounced out of my unplanned nap & Crap! my quick cook pizza was burning in the oven. Yanked it out, fliped on the Fans opened a couple windows more, so the alarm wouldn't sound.
O yea the Lizard. O no! she was no longer where I last seen her. I check all her usual places to be to no avail. I check everything again very well.
It dawns on me she has managed her way out the house. I think she scaled the entire edge of the door, up over and somehow out. Crap! im panicking now as i know a half hour had passed since "my pizza was burning." and if outside she could be long gone! I looked about out there for another half hour when I decide to get a set of my binoculars and scan the trees.
Sure enough there she was up in a 100 foot tall tree, easy to see somewhat as her lime green color was lighter than the tree leaves. Problem now she was 30 feet up in the tree & smiling down at me. Luckily, I had a long ladder used for painting the high parts of the house. Got it leaned into the tree climbed up and she was still 2 feet out of reach in some pretty flimsy branches. Ha, a thought came to mind since she was a eating machine. I grabed a Mealworm went back up and thank GOD! she was hungry. She came down onto my hand and back inside!

Luckily a good ending!

Wow! great story (but only because of the happy ending)

My little girl's never gotten out, but I was once stupid enough to leave her cage open and then go to work
So I got back 8 hours later, nearly had a heart attack, and then realized that she was still in the cage, patiently waiting for me to please shut her door.

I had a friend who would sometimes leave his Veileds cage open simply because he was too big to get out of his room, and each time the Veiled would make the journey across the room to fight his reflection on the mirror of the closet door only to slip behind the door and into the dark closet, and be found several hours later- asleep.

Great, this is what I want people to add. Luckily your Cham was happy in her home. Thats unusual, as most cant resist an open door and the opportunity to explore!

I had a jackson's who had an infection in the corner of his mouth. So every morning I would take him outside the back door and put him on a sunny branch set in concrete in a 5 gallon bucket. I would spray him and when he would start to drink then I would give him his meds.

One day, the phone rang and I went inside and also being pregnant, completely forgot about him for at least 30 mins. Sure enough, went outside and the branch was empty and he was no where to be found. We searched all day and into the night. No luck.

So every morning I would go out with binoculars and look at the tops of the trees that were in the sun for him. About the 5th day I spotted him in the neighbors tree 25 ft up. We woke up the neighbors asking if we could climb their tree and my husband put his 20ft ladder up against the trees. Still couldn't reach, so we used a big stick and he actually got Mojo to climb on the stick and come home! I never forgot him again! He seemed to be just fine on his own though!

I was repotting my plant this weekend, and had him resting in a spare shefflera right next to me.

We tend to have alot of big crows and a local hawk at our park, so I had my gf and I keeping a sharp eye on him while deep cleaning.

She was inside rinsing some stuff real quick, and I quickly came in to wash my hands without thinking.

She looks at me, "Where is Chameleo??!"
I respond by darting outside, and quickly scanning his little tree. Gone! NOoo!

60 seconds of looking, and we see him blending with the grass the best he can, flat as can be, making his way towards a taller hibiscus 4 feet away. I pick him up with a sigh of relief, and much to his dismay, and put him back on his sheff.

So he had less of an urge to run away, I went ahead and set the sheff on a table, which appeased him greatly.

I really want to free range the sucker, but my forgetful nature has me worried of escape attempts like this one. Although, he was just trying to find higher ground, so it was more my fault for not setting him higher.

Awsome I knew there would be some great stories out of this. He he, Im saving my best for last!

Titan, that was a great story, I would have died if that happened to me, I don't own a ladder and there are a lot of outdoor/stray cats in my neighborhood. It wouldn't be long before I was climbing up the tree itself

Luckily my cham has never managed to really escape, it's not for his lack of trying though. Every morning when I open his flexarium to mist, he's there waiting, right below the point where I unzip it (flexariums are a mesh cover over a plastic tube frame, the door is a zipper) So I let him crawl out onto the back of the couch. It's really funny to watch, he goes ever-so-slowly until he's about a foot past where I'm standing, then he just starts running (for a chameleon) as fast as he can. He gets to the end and dosn't seem to know what to do with himself. So I give him a ride on my hand, back to his home...sometimes he's a little reluctant to get OFF!!!

When I first got my veiled - the very first day! He decided he'd try to escape.

My mom and I left to PetSmart to get crickets, and upon coming back home, he was gone. The cage we are using is a rabbit cage. The holes are big enough for him to get through on his side, so we put chicken wire around the cage.

Well. Apparently we missed one hole. A single hole. He escaped while we were gone.

When I got home, I decided to check on him. He was gone! I began frantically turning off the fans and anything he could get hurt on.

We looked everywhere in the house for about an hour. Finally we gave up and sat down, I was in tears. My mom started cooking dinner, and when she turned around she noticed something was wrong with the blinds behind her.

Two sets of feet were gripped around the blinds.
What a peculiar site - try to imagine it!

She calls me into the kitchen to find what else, but a chameleon on the blinds catching some rays. We immediately patched this up with some cardboard.

Darn thing gave me a heart attack.

Keep em comming! now this is good reading here, Thanks all!

Wow, I'm glad I've had my chams through the winter months. No issues with running. Although my little lady does try sometimes. Ha ha. Whenever I take her out she comes a running up to my head. Once, my dad held her, and he's taller then I am by a lot. When suddenly she was gone! I looked up on the chandeleer I have in my room and there she was climbin up it!!! I laughed so hard I choked. We took her down and put her on her tree for a while and she seemed appeased.

That would be so scary to have your cham escape outside, you guys are lucky the weather is warm there, here a cham wouldn't last 5 second outside on most days

Syn, I'm imagining the feet on the blinds, that would be a funny sight indeed! Almost the perfect hiding place

ahahahahah... Great story Mike!

I bet you were stressed to no end!

I did however lose my vield one time while doing a cage cleaning. I was ready to do a cleaning and removed all the potted plants from the bottom and took them outside, it was about 2pm that afternoon. While I was outside placing the plants in the front yard a buddy of mine drove by and stoped, we had not seen eachother for some months and enjoyed a hour long conversation, while inside Osang was making her great excape!! I left the cage door wide open since the pots large and are two handers. A 5 moth old Vield can cover a lot of ground in 1 hour!! She managed to crawl out her of cage and up to the top and then down the electrical cord of her uvb light to the wall plug. She must have jumped off at the plug to the floor!?!? She then proceeded across the bedroom floor and up the bed skirt...across the bed and over to the corner of the wall by the window. I have a surround sound system in my room, with wall mounted speakers at the top of each corner, and there is a thin piece of speaker cable running up the wall to each speaker. She must have climbed up the wire up to the speaker, climbed up the grill and around to the back of the speaker. She was completly hidden behind the speaker!! Mid-conversation I was thinking and suddenly I remembered what I was doing before he stoped by and said in my head...."I did close that cage door, didn't I?" I told him I had to go and quickly ran into the house and then though......DONT RUN!! If she is out I would'nt want to step on her... So I walked up the stairs slowlyto my room and over to the cage and check it out...... sure enough the door was open and she was no where to be found! I cautiously tore the room apart checking everywhere....she was no where to be found, I was sweating bullets by now and it never dawned on me to look up in the corner of the room. I knew I had to think like a chameleon if I was going to find her, so I started at the cage and followed the route down the cord and and across the floor to the bed skirt and then looked at the wall at the thin wire..... Looked up and could see her little bobble head peeking out above the speaker, with a devious grin.... She was bright green and totally relaxed. I truly thought I lost her and was starting to loose hope. The final score... Osang 1 Jason 0 She got me good that time, luckly it ended well.

-Jay

addicted said:

That would be so scary to have your cham escape outside, you guys are lucky the weather is warm there, here a cham wouldn't last 5 second outside on most days

Syn, I'm imagining the feet on the blinds, that would be a funny sight indeed! Almost the perfect hiding place

Click to expand...

I wouldn't doubt it's cold! We have winter visitors who are from Canada, one being my neighbor, and he talks about the snow and, wow. It rarely snows here.

If she wouldn't have seen him then we wouldn't have seen him later. He managed to hold onto the window pane, sort of, and he was out of sight right before I went to get him.

Great pygmy escape

I have a pygmy story too. We have 3 pygmies in a tank in my daughters room. One morning my 9 year old thought it would be fun to take a pygmy out and put it on her doll bed. She watched it for a while, then proceeded to forget about it. 30 min later, she's crying and tells me it escaped on its own and went under the dresser. Her story changed about 8 times.

After searching the whole room, which has toys everywhere, two kids and a cat and lots of dust bunnies, I couldn't find the little thing. I then decided to think like a pygmy and started looking for thin things to climb. I finally found her on an electrical cord 2 ft from the ground just chilling out behind the dresser. With a dust bunnie or two clinging to her feet.

Ok, have not had a chance to read some of the latest posts, but have to slip out with my beautiful girl for a couple cocktails Hope to log in with many, many, many more stories in the morning All have a great night!

In August, I put my Quadracorn huge male out in a 10 foot tree in my yard while I weeded the flowerbeds. I would look up to make sure he stayed in the tree every 5 to 10 minutes, as he had done the drop and run before, but on my last look, he was gone. We searched till dark, and then 4 of us searched most of the next morning, but no sign. I figured a bird got him when I wasn't looking.
4 months later on December 12th, the weather was 31 degrees, and as i got some wood for the fireplace, I spotted him hanging in an evergreen bush. He was skinny, and made full recovery, and lived another year or so!

Had a sweet panther It was my 1st This guy was acclimated 2 being handled & about as warm & fuzzy as a reptile gets. my wife was sunning him one day & he decided 2 take up joggin The next 2 nites were spent lookn 4 him with a flashlight had half the hood enlisted in the search. 2 no availe

Okay. This is a homemade cage Mel escaped from. Little did I know that there was an obstacle course of sorts to get out...



I wasn't so scared to see her up there since I watched her do it, but I definitely put a top on while I was out of the apartment!

Great escapes stories, Jay, Nick , Ponders x 2, Syn, ChaMELeon,

These are the times you know at first your heart just drops to the floor as you realize they are gone

Nick, wow 4 months? (this one is close to my best one, I'm saving to tell ya at a later time here)

Ponders! 5 days and in the neighbors tree.

And De Cam! bummer good story, unfortunate outcome, I would guess most likely someone found you pretty Cham and kept it for their own?

Gizmo took a walkabout a couple of weeks ago. I had opened his cage so that he could climb on his vines that I have strung up acrossed the room. He absolutely REFUSES to poop in his cage and has a designated "place" along one of his vines where he goes to drop one I love how really clean they can be.

Anyway, even though he has free range of his room, this time when I went to check on him, I found the poo but no Gizmo. I checked all the obvious places, the blinds, the windows, etc.

3 hours later (I wasn't panicked yet but getting there), I heard a crinkling sound, there was Gizmo walking around the rim of my trash can. He had to of used one of the electrical chords from his lights to get down there (I quess).

Chameleons are pretty clever when it comes to getting from point A to point B.