Idk why my voice is so damn squeaky when i talk to animals....
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
yea he cute af
This might be helpful for you for trust building... https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/building-trust-with-your-chameleon.2396/
Great blog, thank you!
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.
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.
