Definitely do not push the matter. You have to work in very gradual baby steps because these are not animals that bond to you or "like" you. They see you in one of two ways: threat or non-threat. If you force them to have to get on your hand and make them do what you want they will see you as a threat. They are a prey animal and their instincts are to escape, not confront. By the time they try to bite you they are so scared of you that theyre going to risk sticking around in hopes that theyll scare you away before you decide to eat them. Some chameleons can't ever be convinced otherwise, but some will not mind the occasional handling after time proves you're not scary to them. (Remember you are a giant predator that every instinct in them is telling them to escape from.)
Start slowly by merely standing near the cage for several minutes several times a day. Do not even open it, and certainly do not try to touch them. Once they stop diving for cover or puffing up or hissing then progress to hand feeding. Offer them tasty treats like a squirming cricket or wiggly butterworm. It may take a while for them to realize that they can eat from your hand. Patience! You can't force it. Just stand there quietly and still. Once they start taking food from your hand you can start touching their feet. Always come from below to touch them because anything from above is very scary for them (swooping birds). After a while if they don't mind you just touching their feet you can try to gently ease your finger under a foot. Not pick them up completely, just let them see that them touching you is not a bad thing. That will eventually progress to multiple feet on your hand and eventually you wil be able to pick them up in that manner.
This may or may not work depending on the individual personality of your chameleon! It's the method I used on my panther (who is a social butterfly by nature so it worked very quickly), and then on my jacksons. My Jackson took much longer to see me as a non-threat (months) and the biggest step was he realized that I was the taxi to go to the big outdoor cage with the great plants to hide in and real sun. He certainly doesn't like me, he just knows that if he tolerates me then I'll take him to the outside cage. But my dad tried to do the same, rushed it and freaked him out. Now if he sees my dad he runs, and it took him a few weeks to get back to trusting me. My veiled that I've had the longest of any of them hates me, the world and anything that moves - there's no changing that no matter what I do.
You can't force them to be friendly. You need to realize that your chameleon never may be handleable, like my veiled who STILL dives for cover even though I haven't touched him in like a year. But if you're going to try you need to do it very slowly and know how the animal interprets your behavior so you can be as least threatening as possible. Don't rush it or you could ruin any progress you've gained and have to start all over. Good luck.
you have a friendly chameleon that actually likes to
nothing bad about that. People say you have to be lucky to have a friendly chameleon.
