Italian museums have started offering free dog-sitting in a bid to boost visitor numbers.
The scheme, initiated by the Bauadvisor dog services company, launched on Sunday in Rome at four major cultural sites. They include the Museum of the Ara Pacis, the MAXXI museum of contemporary art, and Castel Sant’Angelo. Forty dog owners reportedly used the service on its opening day.
The service, which can be booked online, will tour 15 tourist hotspots across Italy for one day each month until April 2026. Dog owners will be able to leave their pets with trained minders at the entrances of selected museums. The dogs will then be walked and fed while their owners roam free inside each institution.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice will be offering the dog sitting service on February 7. The Uffizi Galleries in Florence and the National Archaeological Museum in Naples have signed up for September 7 and October 5 respectively.
“This project means owners can enjoy culture without being separated from their pets for long, and dogs will suffer less stress than they would if left at home,” Dino Gasperini, director of Bauadvisor,” told the Times. “It is significantly improving lives.”
A 2024 report published by the Eurispes research company found that a third of Italian families have pets, and that almost 50 percent are dogs. Gasperini claimed that half of dog owners forego visiting museums because they don’t want to leave their pets at home.
Bauadvisor first offered dog-minding at museums two years ago, and a paid service is now available all year at 300 cultural sites in almost 60 cities. The company charges €10 per hour. It has been most popular in the city of Mantua in Lombardy, where around 800 dog owners now book minders every month so they can enjoy sites like the Palazzo Ducale and Palazzo Te.
The Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) revealed that a third of Italians visited museums or exhibitions in the country last year.
Giuliano Volpe, an archaeology professor at the University of Bari, who previously worked as an advisor to Dario Franceschini, a former culture minister, told the Times that “dog-sitting at museums is positive because it means people do not need to choose between their pets and art.”
It remains to be seen if the service is rolled out across Europe. At the Louvre in Paris and London’s Tate, for example, only guide dogs are allowed.
“Dogs should be allowed to enter museums,” Bauadvisor ‘s director, Gasperini, said. “As that is not the case, we have found a solution.”
