Whenever you get to bring your dog with you somewhere public, it always is a win. They’re great companions, so why not bring them with you when you’re running out to the grocery store?
One Italian supermarket decided to make that happen, by designing their shopping carts to accommodate people with dogs.
And the results were very much loved by all.
Owner of the store, Unes, Gianfranco Galantini, came up with the idea after seeing a lot of dogs outside his storefront waiting for their owners. The store, located in the Italian city of Liano, then decided to make the shopping experience a little less rushed for pet owners by letting owners bring their dogs inside.
It wasn’t long before Unes started to offer special carts fitted with a partition that allowed owners to put in their smaller dogs so they could ride along while the owner shopped for groceries.
As Galantini said to La Repubblica, “The owners of small dogs can now avoid having to leave them outside, giving them peace of mind to take all the time they need to make their purchases. The initiative launched just recently, but we’ve already noticed how much our customers appreciate it.”
At the time, it was already legal for dogs to enter into stores such as Unes, so long as the owner had control over them the entire time. However, the shopping carts just made that easier because it provided the owners a place to put their pet while shopping, thus letting them take advantage of their right to bring their dogs with them to the store.
Galantini even said that all the carts were wiped down and disinfected after each use. And he never experienced any adverse problems, though he did say that one dog barked a bit at first, but then “calmed down immediately” once the cart started moving.
The idea was so successful, that it started spreading, with Unes’s corporate management asking Galantini about rolling out the idea to other Unes stores across the country.
One can only hope this idea will become international at some point.
