This Pierce County cat went missing four years ago. His owners found him 30 miles away
Coalie, a 7-year-old black cat, went missing from his Tacoma home in 2020 while his family was on a camping trip.
“I pet him the day that we left,” Remy Knoke, his 16-year-old owner told the Gateway Tuesday, Feb. 20. “He was in the guest room sleeping, and he wasn’t here when we came back.”
Knoke said he was convinced a coyote got Coalie. His mom thought someone stole Coalie. The family posted fliers around the neighborhood and posted in some local Facebook groups such as Tacoma Missing Pets and Pierce County Missing Pets. No one had seen Coalie.
Nearly four years later, they found him 30 miles away, west of the Narrows on the Key Peninsula.
Coalie’s adventures across the Narrows
In October of 2023 a black cat appeared on the Key Peninsula, over 30 miles from the Knokes’ Tacoma home.
There was a group of homeowners in Longbranch who noticed the cat wandering around for a few months. Eventually, Coalie decided he liked Kris Valencia’s property and was “camping out there,” she told the Gateway.
“I used to shoo him out of my yard because I have bird feeders,” she said. “But, he seemed to know I was bluffing.”
Valencia said she and her neighbors were convinced Coalie must have wandered from a local Key Peninsula home. She posted a photo of the black cat in a Palmer Lake Facebook group in late November, but no one claimed him.
Valencia, who has pets of her own, left a bed outside for the cat to rest in. Other times Valencia brought the cat inside her home.
“I put my cat and dog in the bedroom and brought kitty in a few times just to sit in the living room,” Valencia said.
On super cold nights she’d let Coalie stay in the bathroom overnight.
In late January, Valencia decided to take the cat to a local vet in Purdy, who discovered the cat was microchipped.
Max Knoke, Remy Knoke’s dad, was told by the microchip company that their cat had been found. Then Becky Knoke spoke with Valencia, who took Coalie back to her house Jan. 25, where the Knokes would come pick him up later that night.
‘Who’s that cat?’
Becky Knoke originally tricked her son by telling him they needed to help catch a possum that was trapped in a lady’s home on the Key Peninsula. She brought a cat carrier, she said.
She said her son thought it was odd there wasn’t someone closer to the lady that could help her.
Becky Knoke told the Gateway she didn’t want to get her son’s hopes up, in case it ended up not being Coalie after all these years.
When they went to Valencia’s home, Becky Knoke kept asking her son, over and over: “Who’s that cat?”
“The thought crossed my mind for a split second, but then I said there’s no way this could be my cat after almost four years, this far away,” Remy Knoke said.
It was.
“He has the same tufts of hair and patches right under his ears,” Remy Knoke said. “That was always how we were able to tell him apart from the other black cats in the neighborhood. But he had these bald patches and he still does ... and tiny white hairs on his chest ... and a little mole under his right ear.”
“He knows his cat,” his mother said.
They brought Coalie home and said it was like he never left. He knew where the cat door was, and found his food with ease, Remy Knoke said.
An independent, not-so-‘shy guy’
Remy Knoke adopted Coalie in 2016 from the Tacoma-Pierce County Humane Society. At the same time his younger brother, Kolton, adopted a female Calico cat, who he named Skuffy.
Skuffy and Coalie were both kittens who had grown up together, but were from separate litters, Remy Knoke told the Gateway.
He said Coalie loves the outdoors, as well as spending time napping inside. Skuffy, who is more timid, prefers staying indoors.
Coalie was named “Shy Guy” at the humane society. Becky Knoke, Remy’s mother, said that was ironic. He had his foot outside the pen when they saw him at the shelter, as if he was reaching for someone.
They brought him home and Remy Knoke renamed him Coalie.
Coalie wasn’t nervous around people, and would interact with many of the Knokes’ neighbors, they said.
About two or three years after Coalie went missing, the Knoke family got Frank, an orange cat with six toes on each paw. They got Frank from a coworker of Remy’s dad.
Frank also went missing about two or three months ago, Remy Knoke said. He is chipped and flagged as missing.
“He was the boss cat around the neighborhood, and very much an orange cat,” Becky Knoke said about Frank’s personality. “He didn’t leave the yard much, slept in our garage mostly.”
About a year ago Remy Knoke decided he was ready to adopt another cat of his own.
He adopted Newt from the humane society. Coalie gets along with Newt, who is also a black cat. Newt is 20 pounds, and Coalie is about 8 pounds.
The family used to have a pit bull named Jules who passed while Coalie was away. Recently the Knokes got an Australian shepherd puppy, Millie, who Coalie isn’t phased by, they said.
‘He’s happier when he can choose’
Remy Knoke said he always wanted closure about what happened to Coalie, but thought it would never come.
The family remains curious what Coalie’s life was like for the last four years. They were shocked Coalie had no injuries and that he wasn’t noticeably any thinner than before, they said.
Coalie went right back to wanting to spend time indoors and outdoors, they said.
“We tried for almost a week to keep him inside,” Becky Knoke said. “He just screamed and sat at the doors, and tried to rip the cat door off the wall when it was locked.”
Eventually they gave up.
“He’s happier when he can choose whether he wants to be in or out,” Becky Knoke said.
Over the weekend of Feb. 16 and 17 Coalie ended up back at the humane society after a neighbor got a visit from Coalie on her porch. She thought Coalie was lost, because he didn’t have a collar on.
Becky Knoke said Coalie had ripped his collar off.
They’ve put another one on him.
This story was originally published February 25, 2024 at 5:15 AM.
