France in Focus

Charlie adopted us a few months ago & has been nothing but a soppy old fellow. He's got to be the gentlest cat, as far as humans are concerned, that I've ever known & all he wants is to sit with you & be cuddled. In short he's a brilliant house cat.
He's perfectly house trained & has never put a foot wrong except he will chase our house cat Chancy who's scared stiff of him. Charlie is a big lad at 5.9kg & outweighs Chancy by a fair bit.
We've never seen him attack Chancy & it may well be that he chases her because she runs at first sight of him & he thinks it's a game but it's not fair on a cat who's been with us for a couple of years to spend her time looking over her shoulder & being afraid to pass by Charlie sleeping in the kitchen.
Because of this we have decided to try to find a new home for Charlie.
We've no idea of his age as he's not chipped. He seems in very good health & shins up trees like a young'un.
He'll make a wonderfull companion for someone with no other animals &,having thought long & hard about it, if we can find the right partner for him we think it's best if he moved on, failing that he'll stay here & we'll hope for the best as there's no way he's going to a refuge.
If anyone is interested in giving Charlie a new home PM me. We'll gladly transport him to a new home within reasonable distance that wouldn't stress him & would be more than happy for anyone to visit here to see if Charlie could be part of their life. We're about 20 min by car northish of Concarneau.
This is not something we ever anticipated but poor little Chancy seems terrified of him & that's not good for either of them.

Awwww, I hope you find someone for him soon ....

Oh if only I could but I have problems with my 14 year old and the two one year olds although it's getting better.

OK then.
I understand that nobody can take on an unknown cat but can anyone advise us how to stop Charlie chasing little Chancy.
It appears that he's now made our place his territory & is chasing off any interlopers ie Chancy.
It's really gut wrenching to see her coming down from her bedrooms safe haven, in trepidation, looking around all the time to see if Charlie is about.
We keep saying "what will be will be" & " they'll sort it out" but it doesn't really make me feel any better as we invited Charlie into our house not thinking subsequent chasing would happen & poor little Chancy would be outed by this interloper.
Any advice appreciated.

A water pistol ? They seem to work quite well with cats - but not with dogs .... we've tried.
Perhaps a vet would have some suggestions, and joking apart, so might Google.
We wouldn't be able to have a cat - Rafal chases anything that moves.

These sites have some ideas :
https://www.hillspet.com/cat-care/behav ... ired=true#
https://www.comfortzone.com/behavior-bl ... -other-cat

You would have to spend time trying to make it work. It sounds unlikely that things will sort themselves out on their own.

You might ask the vet if Feliway or equivalent might help*. I have never used it so cannot give any commendation.

* it is hormonal based I think and is supposed to create a calming atmosphere so might calm Charlie down and perhaps make Chancy more relaxed.

The other thing is are they both sterilised? It may calm him down if he is.

I second trying the Feliway. I foster cats for a local charity and find that sometimes ( I stress sometimes ) Feliway works. Unfortunately it seems to me that Charlie has had a tough life (the sucking on things points to him losing his mother early on) and now that he's found a comfortable home he's become territorial. I'm afraid to say that, not being socialised from an early age, he's unlikely to change.
The only advice I can offer is to try and keep them apart as much as possible and hope that Charlie eventually feels secure enough in his new environment to share but if it were me, having decided to give him a home, I'd be looking at seeing if I could make a enclosure for him outside of the house.

Sorry I can't be of more help with ours it's been time and it's taken a year. I tried feliway two different formulas when the kittens arrived last year in the hope that it would help with the older cat but neither seem to do the trick but then kittens want to play and get up to mischief.

Thanks for your advice folks. At the moment we're trying something else.
Our feelings are that Charlie chases because Chancy runs so we've bought a little harness which would stop Charlie's movements if he decided to chase.
He certainly doesn't mind the harness & yesterday was the first day with no conflict.
We've now ordered a largish dog cage which we think might be a better way of containing Charlie who spends most of the day asleep in the kitchen which is Chancy's route to outside from her normal sleeping place in a bedroom.
We're hoping to break the cycle which is causing Chancy (& us) much grief as Charlie really is a darling.

Good luck LAF - hope this works.