ok I have been very respectful of her space trying not to upset her. she doesn't seem to stress out when I offer my hand for her to crawl on but if she doesn't want to crawl on it I take it out. I know she will never be a lap dog type pet but I was just hoping maybe she would let me hold her once or twice.
Chameleons are more like having fish as a pet--look but don't touch--than most other pets. Many on the forum disagree and claim their chameleons "like" to be handled. I think a more accurate analysis is that some individual chameleons tolerate handling better than others and some individual handlers are a little more sensitive to their animals so tend to make the whole handling process less stressful for their animal.
What you think you see in the behavior of a chameleon is not usually what is actually going on internally within the mind and body of the chameleon.
As an example, I recently took a group of recently imported chameleons to the vet. One in particular appeared to be very calm. He calmly sat on my hand for examination and calmly sat on the edge of his travel box. His color was normal. He didn't shy away, gape or try to escape. When I put my hand down to him, he reached up to it and climbed up on my hand. If you saw him, you would say that he was a very tame chameleon who found reassurance in my presence. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What was really happening was that this animal was terrified for his life.
If you knew anything about the treatment of wild caughts at capture through import, you would know he has had zero positive experiences with humans, starting from the time someone took a stick to whack him off a tree branch when he was first captured. As a chameleon, he has limited defense strategies, but the fight or flight response is not well developed in young chameleons. Small young chameleons rarely puff up and bite. Some do, but not many. Older, bigger animals are more likely to defend themselves with aggression. He had limited options. He chose to try to go up. While he appeared very calm, I knew he was stressed pretty much to the limit. I knew it because I have a bit of an understanding of how chameleons react to stressful situations having worked with my large collection of mostly wild caught chameleons.
Chameleons are not dogs and never will be. I do understand your desire to have a pet that will allow you to handle it. Be aware, that when you do, you stress the animal. Stress is not an emotion; it is a physiological response to stimuli in the environment. The response to stress, both chronic long term stress (improper caging/temps/humidity) and acute stress such as the stress of being captured by a predator or grabbed by a pet owner, is the release of stress hormones which among other things, suppress the immune system.
So, a stressed chameleon will become a sick chameleon. That is a very important fact to understand about chameleons.
That same chameleon above, the one I know thinks I am a monster about to eat him, will hand feed (as all my wild caughts will) if the food is appealing enough for him to risk taking from me or he is hungry enough. While he will take food from my hand, I do not mistake that with him being tame. He has learned that I have not eaten him or grabbed him when he is hand feeding, which makes him more likely to repeat that behavior, the behavior of hand feeding. He doesn't trust me and will continue to think I am a monster until the day he dies. I accept that. I can still do things like hand feed him and if I wanted, have him out on a tree or roaming a free range. But, I know this animal doesn't trust me.
I don't think any chameleon every trusts humans. Maybe I am wrong and somewhere out there is a chameleon or chameleons that do trust their owners. There is nothing to be lost in your relationship and everything to be gained by starting from the basic premise that this animal is afraid of you and will always be afraid of you. If you start at that basic place--you are a monster in his/her eyes--all you interactions will be changed because you will think more carefully about how you move around your chameleon and your interactions. You will be a kinder, gentler owner.
