Baobao [Photo by Yang Yang/China Daily]

"Of course goofy dogs offer a better cure. I can't help smiling when I see them in the street."

Another to have found feline solace is a cartoonist who goes under the name Wu Bao and who teaches architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Wu, in her 30s, lives alone in the city's Wangjing area, not far from where she works.

Walking into her house, the visitor is confronted by stacks of cat cans on one side and four kitten bowls and a fountain flowing with water.

She has four big cats, three named after her favorite Spanish soccer players, Lionel Messi, Juan Mata and Andres Iniesta.

"Before I got my first cat Leo I had never laughed loudly at home on my own, or talked to myself," she says. "I was kind of boring."

She soon found herself often running after Leo, the two jumping to the bed together and Wu laughing out loudly.

Since she often had to go away on business, worried that Leo would feel lonely at home, she got another cat, Juan, and the two cats quickly bonded. She then bought the other two cats in quick succession.

She has got to know the character of each cat, she says, and insists that local hybrid cats like Leo are the best pet cat because they, with stronger self-consciousness, can interact with humans.

When the weather is good, Wu says, she wakes up in bed surrounded by four lovely cats, "feeling like a king".