Sully Let Me Hold Him

I can’t believe it – Sully, who usually gapes and tries to bite when I get close  to him actually let me pick him up today.

Although most people say holding your chameleons stresses them, after seeing how stressed Skye was when we took  her to the vet, we decided that even if we didn’t hold the chameleons, we should get them used to having us touch them.

Jeff has been holding the crickets in a feeding cup while he feeds them, and after Jeff had been doing that for a few weeks, I started to pet Sully lightly on his back or his tail.

This morning I heard “Sarah, Sully’s trying to escape,” so I ran into the chameleon room, where Sully had crawled from his vine in the front corner of the cage to the top of the cage.

His back legs were still on the vine, so I carefully slid my hand under his body, told Jeff not to let Sully bite me, and picked him up slowly.

He let go of the cage pretty fast, so I didn’t have to wait long (you never pull a chameleon – they can hold on so tight they’ll pull their nails out before they let go) and I slowly lifted him up and put him back onto the vine in his cage.

Sully didn’t really look mad – Jeff says he looked like he got caught and was trying to act innocent, and he didn’t hold on tight, or gape at me.

I was really surprised that Sully let me hold him!

I guess we might have to move that vine away from the front of the cage, and Jeff will have to stop leaving the cage door open while he gets crickets.

Of course with Skye sitting in the cage right beside him you can’t blame him for trying to escape.

I’m just glad he went up on top of the cage, instead of going into her side of the cage!