Want to bring a dog to this Italian city? That'll be $1.75

Drivers in London, New York and other major cities are used to being charged for bringing cars into the city. Now one municipality may demand payment to bring dogs into town. A bill in Bolzano, Italy, would mean owners of dogs visiting the Tyrolean Alps would face a charge of roughly 1.50 euros ($1.75) per day, Italian media reported. Local dogs won't escape under the bill, which would come into force in 2026 if approved by the provincial council. Residents would be charged an estimated 100 euros per dog, per year, bringing back a dog tax abolished in 2008. These taxes would replace a policy in Bolzano that requires DNA testing for all dogs. The testing requirement, used to identify dogs that left waste behind, as well as those that were struck by cars or that attacked, had proved difficult to implement. Officials say the money raised from the dog taxes will go to street cleaning and building dog parks. Perhaps bidding for the doggy vote, mayor Claudio Corrarati said, "We would be dogs to impose a tax on dogs." Asked if such a tax were likely to go into effect, he said: "In Bolzano, not. For sure. Come to Bolzano with your animals!" To solve the dirty sidewalk problem, he suggested using neighborhood watches to "thoroughly report those who disrespect their neighborhood".

Rembrandt copied another artist's dog for 'Night Watch'

It didn't exactly take dogged detective work for an art sleuth in Amsterdam to solve a canine conundrum dating back to the Dutch Golden Age. Anne Lenders, a curator at the city's landmark Rijksmuseum, said it was more or less by accident that she discovered that the barking dog in Rembrandt van Rijn's famous "Night Watch" is a near-identical copy of one that features in a 1619 pen and ink drawing by fellow Dutch artist Adriaen van de Venne . She was visiting an exhibition at the Zeeuws Museum in the southern Netherlands when her eye fell on a picture of a dog by Van de Venne. "The resemblance is so strong that at the very first moment I thought he (Rembrandt) must have used this," she added. That's when the research started. "The head turns in exact the same angle with the mouth slightly opened... Both dogs have long hair and ears that hang vertical," she said.