The Christian Science Monitor

Paid leave to care for pets? For more Italians, the answer is 'sì!'

Eleonora Venturelli, walking her dog Maya in Rome, says her dog is like a sister to her.

In a rundown park in the shadow of Rome’s Colosseum, Eleonora Venturelli takes her dog Maya for a walk after finishing a day at nursing school.

She says if Maya needed more – an emergency visit to the vet, for example – she wouldn’t hesitate to drop everything, as she would if a member of her family needed her. “Maya, for me she is as important as my mother, as my father,” says Ms. Venturelli.

“I’m an only child. She is

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