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Service Dog Day a success  

Dr. Herb Maisenbacher conducts a heart examination on Blaze, a K-9 with the Alachua County Sheriff's Office while Blaze's companion, deputy Scott Bonafide, assists.

Approximately one dozen service dogs signed up at the UF Small Animal Hospital for free eye and heart screening examinations on May 13. It’s the second year UF has participated in the event, which is sponsored by the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists and Merial, and the first that the hospital’s cardiology service has been involved in.

This year, two K-9s from the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office were among the dogs receiving services, which were rendered by Dr. Caryn Plummer, assistant professor of ophthalmology, and Dr. Herb Maisenbacher, a lecturer with the cardiology service.

“We are now officially the veterinarians for the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, the Florida Highway Patrol and the University Police Department,” said Dr. Amy Stone, who saw her first UPD K-9 patient on May 19.

“We have been the vets for FHP for a long time,” Stone said. “The other two agencies just joined the family.”

She added, “the attraction in coming to UF was that these agencies could get their primary care and emergency care in the same place, given the nature of what they do.”