By Issy Ronald, CNN
(CNN) — Several Italian museums are offering a solution to the age-old conundrum faced by dog owners – should they go out without their beloved pet or simply stay at home with their four-legged friend?
Instead of having to make this decision, owners were able to leave their pets with dog-sitters for free at four museums in Rome on Sunday, including at the National Etruscan Museum and the Castel Sant’Angelo.
Created and run by the company Bauadvisor, it aims to more easily allow dog owners to visit museums in a country where there are more than 8 million dogs, according to a report published by the trade body representing the European pet food industry.
Normally, a paid version of the service operates at 290 museums in 53 cities across Italy. One of the company’s 400 dog-sitters meets the owner outside the museum and takes the dog for a walk in the green spaces nearby before reuniting them with their owners after they have finished wandering around the museum.
Meanwhile, this promotional, free version of the service launched on Sunday and will take place for one day only every month over the next 15 months, each time in a different Italian city.
The free service will next be available at four museums in Venice, including the Guggenheim Collection, in February before travelling to Bologna in March where it will be outside two museums there.
Owners must book the service, which normally costs 10 euros per hour ($10), on the company’s website beforehand.
In this way, Bauadvisor hopes to “support and enhance the historical and cultural heritage of Italy,” its CEO Dino Gasperini told CNN Tuesday.
Similar services have sprung up in other countries like in France, where company PatchGuard provides doggy day care in some of the country’s biggest cities, allowing dog owners to more easily explore attractions.
And in May, Mars Petcare and TripAdvisor partnered to highlight tourist attractions, restaurants and hotels that are dog-friendly. The companies said that their research showed that around one third of pet owners in the US changed their travel plans due to the difficulty of travelling with their furry friends.
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CNN’s Ivana Scatola contributed reporting.
