After surviving three weeks at sea and a four-day train journey in a sealed shipping container, a stowaway cat from China is now thriving in a sunlit room filled with cat toys and fresh water at the Pet Haven animal rescue organization in St. Paul.
She’s even learning English.
Xiao Mao shortly after she was found June 4, 2025, by an employee at a distribution center in Oakdale. (Courtesy of Companion Animal Control)
Xiao Mao, which means “little cat” in Chinese, now weighs 8½ pounds, a huge increase from the 3.2 pounds she weighed when she was found in an Oakdale distribution center on June 4. When she arrived at Pet Haven just a few days later, she was emaciated, dehydrated and terrified of humans, said Kerry D’Amato, the organization’s executive director.
“She was bone thin, and she was starving,” D’Amato said. “We were actually surprised she was alive given the condition she was in. She was very, very dehydrated. She drank and drank and drank and drank. We couldn’t touch her at all. She would hiss and lunge at us.”
Staff at Pet Haven started Xiao Mao on a “slow refeeding program” so as not to stress her internal organs, D’Amato said. She’s now eating a steady diet of wet and dry cat food, she said.
“She’s doing great,” D’Amato said. “Her ears are forward, her eyes are bright. She’s playful. She eats Churu (a pureed cat treat) off my finger. She’s really come a long way.”
Xiao Mao now knows the English words “treat” and “come,” D’Amato said. “She knows ‘treat’ for sure, and she has learned ‘come, come.’ When you say that, she’ll come forward. She’s learning.”
Wallflowers program
Xiao Mao is believed to have survived by drinking condensation that pooled in the metal shipping container and perhaps eating spiders and a rodent or two.
Staff from Companion Animal Control, which serves Oakdale, used a live trap with canned tuna as bait to catch Xiao Mao the night after she was discovered. She was then brought to Northwoods Humane Society in Wyoming, Minn., where they hoped she could recover and be adopted.
But Xiao Mao needed more care and attention, so staff at Northwoods reached out to Pet Haven, in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood, which has a program — called Wallflowers — “which gives shy, undersocialized cats and dogs a chance to bloom,” D’Amato said.
Kerry D’Amato holds a painting of Xiao Mao created by a frequent volunteer at Pet Haven. (Claudia Staut / Pioneer Press)
Now, Xiao Mao has a private room — a former office space — that features exterior and interior windows. She’s got four cat trees, two food bowls, a water fountain, a water bowl, a sheepskin bed and fuzzy blankets. A sign stating “Wallflowers Bloom Here” is posted outside, just below a small painting of Xiao Mao, along with her name written in Chinese characters.
“We just gave her the space — as much space as she needs,” D’Amato said. “Sometimes that can take a week, sometimes it takes a month. You know, honestly, sometimes it can take a year. And we give it to them. Once they enter our program, there is no time limit. They all graduate.
“We’ve had cats come in here that we couldn’t touch that are now snuggled on their adopters’ laps,” she said. “We had one, Fruitcake, that we didn’t think anyone was ever going to be able to touch. Now she snuggles on her adopter’s lap, so you just don’t know.”
Pet Haven, which was founded in 1952, started the Wallflowers program three years ago when the organization moved into its first physical location. Since then, more than 100 cats — who may have been euthanized at traditional shelters — have been rehabilitated and adopted out, D’Amato said.
Making friends
Xiao Mao likes to look through the windows in her room and wait for staff to come in. She especially loves chasing a wand toy, “which is basically a plastic stick with silver tinsel at the end of it,” D’Amato said.
Pet Haven’s executive director Kerry D’Amato holds two kittens. Staff at Pet Haven are working to pair Xiao Mao with a “special cat friend” to help her learn to socialize. (Claudia Staut / Pioneer Press)
Getting her to finally eat Churu from D’Amato’s finger is a big deal because “then they associate the smell of that person with something positive, which is the treat that they’re eating,” she said. “That’s the next step in socialization and building trust. It’s all about trust-building and letting them move at their own pace.”
Staff at Pet Haven are now working to pair Xiao Mao with a “special cat friend” to help her learn to socialize. They know that Xiao Mao prefers male cats to female cats, so they arranged over the weekend to have two neutered male cats brought down by Leech Lake Legacy, an animal-welfare organization, from the Pennington County Humane Society in Thief River Falls.
On Monday, Xiao Mao met both for the first time. Boo, a black domestic short hair, seemed hesitant and his tail puffed up a little bit.
Prince, however, was a different story. The gray-and-white tabby took an immediate interest in Xiao Mao, who was hiding on a blanket inside one of her cat trees.
“Hey Xiao Mao, come on out. Is this your new boyfriend? Is this your new boyfriend?” D’Amato called. “Come on out. Come on. He’s a pretty boy. He’ll be your man of the hour, or the moment, or the rest of your life.”
Prince meowed and pranced around trying to get Xiao Mao to come out and play. She emerged briefly, and the two circled around each other. She then returned to her lair.
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D’Amato declared the meeting a success.
“He’s got no puffing up,” she said. “His shackles — his shoulders — are flat, his tail is flat, his chirp is high-pitched. It’s a sound that is friendly and excited. He’s trying to call her out to play. See how he kind of jumps his step a little bit from side to side? That is play posturing. He really wants her to come out and play. See now how he’s arching his back and rubbing against that pole? That’s ‘Hey, look. I’m here. Come on out. Let’s play. Let’s get to know each other.’ He really likes her. He’s talking to her like crazy.”
Xiao Mao has shown signs of being ready to have a companion move into the room with her, D’Amato said.
“She’s ready to take that next step in her process and have a well-socialized companion,” she said. “She can bond with him. She can learn to trust him. And as she sees him trust us, then we’ll be able to make more progress with her.”
Staff at Pet Haven will let the cats spend time together and then remove Prince from the room, “so she’s kind of, like, ‘Well, where did he go? I’m missing him,’” D’Amato said.
That “slow introduction” will continue over a period of several days, she said. Given that they’re both cats that have been socialized with other cats, staff will be able “to move those introductions a little quicker than we would normally,” she said. “Normally we would take a little bit more time, but Xiao Mao is desperate for companionship. She has showed us that.”
Foster home next
D’Amato expects Xiao Mao and Prince to spend anywhere from two to six weeks together in Xiao Mao’s room at Pet Haven. Staying in the same space is key for Xiao Mao, she said.
“Everything stays the same in their room, but many different people come and go, so they get different smells, they get different experiences,” D’Amato said. “But every time someone comes into the room, they get something positive — whether it’s food, a new treat, a toy that is soaked in catnip, something new comes in their room with that new person that’s positive, and that’s how we start socializing them to people.”
The pair will then move into a foster home for anywhere from six weeks to three months, D’Amato said, and then be put up for adoption together.
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One option might be a foster-to-adopt situation, D’Amato said.
“My preference is to make sure that she gets in the right place so she can finish her journey and be a fully well balanced cat that enjoys her life,” D’Amato said. “It’s not living in fear, right? What we’re seeing now is a cat that is curious, that wants to experience the world around her, even though her world has been a small room at our headquarters, she feels safe there. So now she’s able to be more herself. She comes out, she plays, she sits at the window, she chirps at people.
“All of these things are wonderful signs that she is taking that next step into wanting to be a well-loved cat.”
Find more information about Pet Haven and how to donate or volunteer at pethavenmn.org.
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