Ikea Has Found A Brilliant Way To Help Homeless Animals Get Adopted

The retailer's stores in Tempe, Arizona and Singapore are placing life-sized cardboard cutouts of homeless cats and dogs on the couches, rugs and bunk beds of its showrooms.

The cutouts all display a different barcode, which customers can scan with their phones for more information on the pet pictured.

"We thought it was a perfect way to show people what their home would look like with a pet in it," Becky Blaine, Ikea Tempe's marketing director, told Business Insider.

The program has been successful so far. Of the six cutouts that have been featured at the Tempe store, all have been adopted, Blaine said. More cutouts of adoptable pets will be featured in the store beginning July 29.

The idea for the program originated in Singapore, with a partnership between Ikea and Home For Hope, a coalition of pet adoption agencies that includes Save Our Street Dogs and the Animal Lovers League.

The Tempe store partnered with the Arizona Humane Society to create its own pet adoption program.

The process to make the cutouts is documented in a video made by Home For Hope. First, the animals have their photos taken, as in the image below.

YouTube/HomeForHopeThe photos are enlarged, printed on cardboard, and placed in various showrooms throughout the store.

YouTube/HomeForHopeHere's a cutout perched on a child's crib.

YouTube/HomeForHopeHere's another of a dog in a mock living room.

YouTube/HomeForHopeWatch the video on the program below.