New Male Veiled, YAY ! Attitude question :)

[charlotteclaraschameleon]

Alrighty, so I've had many veiled chameleons in my time, and boy is this one ever a cutie. Rescued him from someone taking poor care of him and after 4 calcium injections and corrected husbandry he's well on his road to recovery from MBD, and is already looking much stronger and noticeably less shaky after only 4 days SO, on to his personality, which is quite big When I got him about a week ago he reeeeeally didnt like me, I had to be getting him from his cage to give him his shots and bring him outside in the sun, and of course even doing it as gently and submissively as I could he was still freaking out and hissing, now after only about 4 days (my quickest chameleon attitude adjustment period) he no longer hisses at me when I go onto his cage, and today he even WILLINGLY crawled out onto my hand (major shocker as, again, this has got to be one of the quickest 'tude adjustments I've ever seen in a veiled!!) BUT, he has started to instantly fall asleep on me ! I just want to make sure this is him being comfortable with me and not him playing dead so to speak lol (as it happens during the day) . I have a really hard time believing it's because he's uncomfortable or scared because he's his normal happy colors, shows absolutely no signs of stress, and actually looks quiiiiite comfortable. And it isn't as if he sleeps during the day, once again he's well on his road to recovery, just when he gets on me. He even situates his head to rest on my fingers and just cuddles right in. Very cute, I just want to make sure this is, well, I know not normal, but that this is a positive, not a negative I took a pic of him this morning, I had been rubbing his chin and he was tilting his head up into it loving it (took my hand away for a sec to take the pic and he stayed hahaha) (ignore the food coloring on my hands, even steel wool wouldn't scrub that crap off! )

 

[Theveiled]

My male veiled will fall asleep on my hand and also tilt his chin when I rub under it. I have had him for 2 months and this is normal when I sit with him at the end of the day. I'm not sure about doing it during the day though as my veiled during the day wants to walk on my arms and sit on my shoulder. He only sleeps on my hands with me at night.

 

[charlotteclaraschameleon]

My male veiled will fall asleep on my hand and also tilt his chin when I rub under it. I have had him for 2 months and this is normal when I sit with him at the end of the day. I'm not sure about doing it during the day though as my veiled during the day wants to walk on my arms and sit on my shoulder. He only sleeps on my hands with me at night.

Yep, all my others did that too ! Very cute, this is the first lil guy I've had that acts snuggly during the day as well, usually it's all climbing and besides using me to get around they're like no mom let me do my stuff and then at night they get all cuddly, but this lil guy has been cuddly through and through since he stopped showing aggression towards me !

 

[jajeanpierre]

I would really like to see a picture of him, especially good pictures of his eyes, without his eyes closed. In the picture you sent it almost looked as if there was a lot of puffiness around his turret. Maybe a sinus infection? It could be lots of things including a deceptive picture. I would be very surprised if an animal you have just received, that you were causing a lot of grief to with injections on top of handling him with painful MBD would ever "cuddle." My first thoughts would be the animal was in declining health.

 

[charlotteclaraschameleon]

I would really like to see a picture of him, especially good pictures of his eyes, without his eyes closed. In the picture you sent it almost looked as if there was a lot of puffiness around his turret. Maybe a sinus infection? It could be lots of things including a deceptive picture. I would be very surprised if an animal you have just received, that you were causing a lot of grief to with injections on top of handling him with painful MBD would ever "cuddle." My first thoughts would be the animal was in declining health.

Hi there ! Yeah I totally get that, and he definitely gets shy and scared and is still warming up, but he clearly wants to come out of his cage come noon time, and got much more active today actually and actually sprinted to his plant at one point he just isn't aggressive anymore, and you wouldn't believe how amazing he is for the shots...Anyways, his eyes don't really look swollen to me, here are some more pics, hes out getting sun on his hibiscus and keeps swiveling around as I try to take pic ( his "leave me alone I'm sunning" swivel) so it's hard to get a good one

 

[charlotteclaraschameleon]

Hi there ! Yeah I totally get that, and he definitely gets shy and scared and is still warming up, but he clearly wants to come out of his cage come noon time, and got much more active today actually and actually sprinted to his plant at one point he just isn't aggressive anymore, and you wouldn't believe how amazing he is for the shots...Anyways, his eyes don't really look swollen to me, here are some more pics, hes out getting sun on his hibiscus and keeps swiveling around as I try to take pic ( his "leave me alone I'm sunning" swivel) so it's hard to get a good one

(These are right after I sprayed him)

 

[charlotteclaraschameleon]

Definitely not in declining health conditions...when I got him I didn't know if he would make it through the night and now hes quite spritely, climbing all about his cage and acting like a happy little guy

 

[jajeanpierre]

Definitely not in declining health conditions...when I got him I didn't know if he would make it through the night and now hes quite spritely, climbing all about his cage and acting like a happy little guy

It must have just been the way he was closing his eye in your first picture. He looks great!

I've worked with some of the best animal trainers in the world, and one thing they drilled into all their students' heads was not to attach a label or motive to a behavior. The label "aggressive" puts a spin on the behavior that actually might have nothing to do with his motives at all.

Rather than labeling him as being aggressive, try describing the behavior by what he does, not how you perceive he is thinking.

It would look something like this:

When I do this ___________, he does this ____________ (such as gapes, puffs up, lifts one foot off the ground, runs away, hides behind a branch). When you describe the behavior, it takes all the motive out of his behavior so you are able to actually look at the whole interaction without any prejudice.

Words like "aggressive" are loaded with emotion and judgement. Our society has trained us well to respond to an aggressive animal differently than to respond to an animal that is afraid. I think when dealing with chameleons, the predominant emotion when they are aggressing towards a person is fear. While the choice of words might seem like a very minute difference, it actually isn't. Words do matter, even when we are only talking to ourselves.