Cat lovers are tickled by the idea that their pet's personality can be revealed by the shape of their paw. Photo: Li Hao/GT

When Vicki Zhang stumbled upon an excerpt of Cat's Paw Reading on the Internet, she was fascinated by what it had to say about feline personalities.

A cat lover in Japan claims to have invented a way to "read" a cat's character from the shape of the lobes on its paw. The Chinese version of the book, published on March 13 in Taiwan, has already become very popular with cat owners.

Zhang owns three Siamese cats, one of whom has a clover-shaped heel pad. According to the paw reading theory, cats with the clover shape are emotional and extremely attached to people. "I think this is very true," Zhang said, noting that her cat Kiki is the one who never leaves her side. When she cooks, Kiki jumps upon the kitchen counter. The cat even likes to sit on Zhang's thighs when she's on the toilet.

"It also says that these cats easily feel envious if they are ignored," she giggled. "When I concentrate on surfing the Internet, she stares at me. If I don't touch her, she'll lightly scratch me with both her forepaws," she said. "That's why I always have fresh scratches on my upper arms."

Zhang said that the majority of the other members in her cat owners' QQ group consider this theory to be both interesting and surprisingly accurate.

According to her online bio, the Japanese author, who goes by the pen name Akatsuki, makes a living by giving palm readings - for humans. As she also happens to be an avid lover of cats, it was a natural next step for her to wonder about applying the principles of palmistry to felines. Thus, she started to analyze thousands of cats' paws.

There are some basic rules for paw reading. "You have to look at forepaws, and it's better to read the right forepaw," said Zhang. 

Besides clover, there are four other types of heel pad shapes, each revealing a different personality trait. Cats with a "rice roll" pad are filled with a sense of justice; those with a "rice grain" pad are timid but considerate; rocket-shaped pads suggest an intense sense of curiosity about unknown things, and cats whose pads look like Mount Fuji tend to be obsessive about attracting their owners' attention.

"The four little toe pads are like human fingers, which represent a cat's preferences in regard to eating habits, intelligence, love relationships, and luck," Zhang explained.

One Beijing cat owner, Alex Lin, was urged by his girlfriend to "read" the paw of their American shorthair. "I observed that our cat's paw looks like the rocket type," he said. However, he also concluded that their cat possesses all the aforementioned personality traits. "People say that cats are like women - their moods are ever-changing," Lin said.

Far more important in determining a cat's personality, Lin believes, are its breed and the circumstances under which it was raised. To illustrate his point, he mentioned that he once took in a stray cat, who has since died. "Looking at an old photo, I noticed that her paw was the rice grain type, but since she lived on the streets without being taken good care of, she was not timid at all," he said. "She had to fight for food to survive."

Rosie Furlong, a veterinarian at Doctors Beck & Stone, a pet health care center in Chaoyang district, considers the paw reading to be a form of entertainment - not something to be taken seriously. Generally speaking, paws are not even scrutinized by vets to ascertain the a cat's general state of health, according to Furlong.