Tutorial: How to handle and tame a chameleon

Amen! My girls hate my guts...then again, so does my wife, so it might not be a chameleon thing...

Ya’ll might appreciate this... Clarice really wants to be a good girl. She just gets cranky sometimes... like today when she nearly took my thumb off. She gets SUPER cranky when she gets to the crazy phase of pacing for a mate.

Here is her regretting her behavior. She bows her eyes and her head like she has remorse. :LOL: Idk why my voice is so damn squeaky when i talk to animals....

 
This is what my parents suggested I do with Coda but I protested because I hate seeing the animals so scared the first few times
Mine didn't get scared. I just had to nudge him onto my hand. It was more some frustration for the first week or so, once he noticed I wasn't gonna hurt him, he would get more pissed off then scared if I nudged him onto my hand.
 
How is this fear conditioning? Fear conditioning is

"Fear conditioning is a type of classical conditioning that involves pairing an aversive stimulus (such as an electric shock) with either a neutral context (such as a location) or stimulus (such as a tone). This results in the expression of a fear response in the presence of the context or stimulus alone."

So explain to me. What location am I associating with fear and using what stimulus?
I simply nudged him onto my hand and put him on a plant in the sun. Then, he associated me with the freerange. This is positive reinforcement, not "fear conditioning".
Now he climbs on my arm at any occasion. How am I getting him to willingly climb on my arm using fear?? All he wants to do is go on the freerange, and now he associates me with it.
being a behavior specialist and degrees in psych, I don't actually think she meant fear conditioning. These animals are already born with an innate sense of fear, so being in captivity with their owner a giant predator we become the stimulus that causes fear I our chams regardless of our intent. If you were a tiny lizard and this giant who continuously reaches into your home I bet you would be scared to. So, I don't think she ment it in the traditional sense.
 
being a behavior specialist and degrees in psych, I don't actually think she meant fear conditioning. These animals are already born with an innate sense of fear, so being in captivity with their owner a giant predator we become the stimulus that causes fear I our chams regardless of our intent. If you were a tiny lizard and this giant who continuously reaches into your home I bet you would be scared to. So, I don't think she ment it in the traditional sense.
yea I agree, I would be scared. But all relationships that are built with chams start with getting rid of that fear. i doubt my cham would climb on me when I reach my hand in if he was scared of me.
 
yea I agree, I would be scared. But all relationships that are built with chams start with getting rid of that fear. i doubt my cham would climb on me when I reach my hand in if he was scared of me.
The thing with reptiles is that they can develop an association between two stimuli for example they could associate you with food or something else which drives their behavior, but that doesn't mean that they still aren't scared of you. What it does mean is that they can learn to tolerate you.
 
The thing with reptiles is that they can develop an association between two stimuli for example they could associate you with food or something else which drives their behavior, but that doesn't mean that they still aren't scared of you. What it does mean is that they can learn to tolerate you.
So you are saying that for the luxury of going to the freerange, he will climb on a predator he is scared of?
 
So you are saying that for the luxury of going to the freerange, he will climb on a predator he is scared of?
Again, reptiles can learn to tolerate people. My sulcata tortoise is a few months shy of being a year old. She has learned to associate me with food. She tolerates me handling her for her soaks and other maintenance, but she still after almost a year is still scared of me. Tolerance can easily appear as trust.
 
@PabloTheCham Dont get too attached to the fact he is okay with you right now. Once he he hits 11-13 months he may turn on ya'.

Haven't personally experienced this but was warned by some other members.
My juvenile Veiled and I were best friends. We did everything together. We ate, cried, laughed, even slept together... One day I tried to handle him and he bit me..... He was about a year when he started being mean. He wouldn’t answer my calls, did not want to hang out anymore. Started rumors about me, that I was a bad herper.... He got sour, and never got sweet again.

It’s an over exaggeration but you get it..

I even made a thread once, I tried to handle him and he literally jumped off his basking spot. Stayed 3 days in same spot without moving. Tbh I though he was dead, but I kept poking him with a stick and he kept hissing... Ever since that day, he hates humans....
 
My juvenile Veiled and I were best friends. We did everything together. We ate, cried, laughed, even slept together... One day I tried to handle him and he bit me..... He was about a year when he started being mean. He wouldn’t answer my calls, did not want to hang out anymore. Started rumors about me, that I was a bad herper.... He got sour, and never got sweet again.

It’s an over exaggeration but you get it..

I even made a thread once, I tried to handle him and he literally jumped off his basking spot. Stayed 3 days in same spot without moving. Tbh I though he was dead, but I kept poking him with a stick and he kept hissing... Ever since that day, he hates humans....
Looking back at my old post. I’ve grown a lot as a keeper. Thank you all for your constructive and not so constructive criticism. You guys and gals are awesome.

Title of my old post is my chameleon hind legs look a bit chunky if anybody is interested (probably not)
 
My juvenile Veiled and I were best friends. We did everything together. We ate, cried, laughed, even slept together... One day I tried to handle him and he bit me..... He was about a year when he started being mean. He wouldn’t answer my calls, did not want to hang out anymore. Started rumors about me, that I was a bad herper.... He got sour, and never got sweet again.

It’s an over exaggeration but you get it..

I even made a thread once, I tried to handle him and he literally jumped off his basking spot. Stayed 3 days in same spot without moving. Tbh I though he was dead, but I kept poking him with a stick and he kept hissing... Ever since that day, he hates humans....
???
 
My juvenile Veiled and I were best friends. We did everything together. We ate, cried, laughed, even slept together... One day I tried to handle him and he bit me..... He was about a year when he started being mean. He wouldn’t answer my calls, did not want to hang out anymore. Started rumors about me, that I was a bad herper.... He got sour, and never got sweet again.

It’s an over exaggeration but you get it..

I even made a thread once, I tried to handle him and he literally jumped off his basking spot. Stayed 3 days in same spot without moving. Tbh I though he was dead, but I kept poking him with a stick and he kept hissing... Ever since that day, he hates humans....
I'm gonna enjoy my last three months of this then....

 
@Gingero would you have any other/different recommendations for a new juvenile panther? I’ve been trying to “ignore” my new guy as much as possible while he acclimates and haven’t handled him, but a part of me thinks I should be using the time while he’s young to begin handling and starting to build trust.
 
@Gingero would you have any other/different recommendations for a new juvenile panther? I’ve been trying to “ignore” my new guy as much as possible while he acclimates and haven’t handled him, but a part of me thinks I should be using the time while he’s young to begin handling and starting to build trust.
If memory serves me right, you just got your guy this last week... I'd give him at least 2 weeks to settle in and then start just hanging out by his enclosure so he can start to trust you. Then you can try cup feeding and go from there.
 
If memory serves me right, you just got your guy this last week... I'd give him at least 2 weeks to settle in and then start just hanging out by his enclosure so he can start to trust you. Then you can try cup feeding and go from there.

Oi, let's see you make a video of you assembling/setting up and installing a mistking from start to finish.
 
Oi, let's see you make a video of you assembling/setting up and installing a mistking from start to finish.
I've gotten a few requests for a video about that. Unfortunately my MistKing is already set up... soooo it'd be really hard to film that. Maybe if I get a new system one day. I do have a video already on how to set up a MistKing timer because that stumped me when I was first setting it up.

 
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