JonnyB22
New Member
So a few months ago I got my 1 year old male veiled from a local pet store. When I bought him the store owner told me he was pretty mean and that he bit the foot off of another female they were housing him with. I knew chameleons are very territorial so I decided to get him anyways, thinking I could maybe tame him. Then seeing how the owner was handling him I thought any pet would be mean with how rough they were with him. At first it seemed like he had more trust towards me than my girlfriend (maybe because all of the employees in the store were female?). After slowly moving up to him and holding my hand in his cage for about 2 hours, I was able to pull him out of the cage for about 10 minutes before he started getting anxious. From reading threads on here about handling aggressive chameleons, I've tried the hand feeding and normal things to try to gain trust, but I don't think it's helping very much. He usually puffs up and hisses a bit when I stick my hand in his cage to feed or clean poop out. Then he started charging my hand and sort of giving me a warning "bump". Until about a week ago I was trying to clean poop off of a vine, and he bit me, very very hard! I also have another female veiled she is about 9 months old and she acts the same way as my male. Is their behavior because of something I am doing? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.