Animal shelter displays adoptable cats like cars in ‘Catvana’ ads

While selling cars and adopting out cats may not have much in common, an online car retailer inspired one clever animal shelter in its efforts to find its felines new homes.

Pippi’s Place Pet Rescue in Lawrenceville, Georgia, recently went viral on social media thanks to a hilarious Facebook post that featured its cats up for adoption on a “Catvana” website. If that name sounds familiar, there’s a reason. The entire concept was borrowed from Carvana, a website people can use to browse cars for sale. But, with Catvana, people select something much more cute and cuddly.

Catvana’s tagline is purrfection, too: “They don’t come from vending machines, but they do love boxes.”

In the Facebook post you can see an “inventory” of cats listed with a year, make, model and description, just as someone looking for a car would find on Carvana! There are lots of fun furry puns in the adoption lineup including a 2014 Furrari named Arlis, a 2022 Pursche named Ashton and a 2022 Meowzda named Cassie.

Pipi’s Place’s social media manager Kayla Delcoure published the post and told NPR the idea came to her from her husband, who has recently been looking for a new truck.

“[He] occasionally brings me his phone to show me the listings,” she said in the NPR interview. “On Tuesday morning, while I was brainstorming cute ways to display all nine of Pippi’s Place’s available cats in one post, my husband walked into my office to show me a truck listing.”

The listing ignited Delcoure’s imagination and the social media director got to work. After reviewing the Carvana website, the ideas rolled in quickly and she created a page filled with loveable cats ready to go home with new families.

The internet didn’t take long to flock to this unique cat adoption page and news spread quickly. Within just a few days, news outlets started covering the pet rescue and all the publicity got the attention of Carvana. Instead of asking the rescue organization to pull down the promotion, the company stepped up to help. Carvana representatives stopped by the cat rescue and presented volunteers with a $4,000 check to help with animal care expenses.

Allison Andrews of Carvana told Atlanta First News that the company felt it was right not to ask Pippi’s Place to remove the social media posts.

“Let’s not do what we think we should do. Let’s connect with them and see what their actual needs are,” Andrews said.

MORE: Shelter finds holiday homes for all its animals for the first time in 47 years