helpful videos with cat health

On the 4th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

6 cat video's. ;-)

My youngest two children, Elyse and Therese, have been having me read/sing the 12 days of Christmas song as we look through a book we have with the words. They started doing that about a week before Christmas, and we continue, as the Christmas season really does start on Christmas Day and continue until January 6.

I thought as a gift, this site from the Cornell Veterinary school was very interesting. It has simple things such as brushing your cat's teeth and taking it's temperature.

OK, maybe those are not so simple to do. ;-) But they do show you how to do that.

The also have ones on clipping their toenails, giving liquid medicine, and giving pill medications.

The sixth section is on Diabetes in the cat. The site actually has 6 different segments within the diabetic site on diagnosing, treatment, giving insulin, nutritional therapy, monitoring, and hypoglycemia. They have very good information, and even dog diabetic owners will find helpful information there, although not all of it applies.

It is certainly a good place to find accurate information about diabetes.

So that is our gift to you. There is also a permanent link on our web site at Lakeview Veterinary Clinic.com in the 'where we go online' section.

On the second day of Christmas...

I hope all of you had a good start to your Christmas season. In our faith tradition, the Christmas season actually does not start until Christmas Day, and lasts for 12 days! We do celebrate each day with a special gift or fun event. In the past, my wife and I would have a present for the children to unwrap. We have had more fun making special meals together, and then eating them. We would try different things we saw in recipe books, or just have fun with one item.

This year our plan one day is to try a soft pretzel recipe.

You may wonder why I was not in the clinic today. Before buying Lakeview Veterinary Clinic, I did 'relief' or temp' work for other veterinarians when they went on vacation or attended conferences. Once our initial papers were signed to purchase the clinic, I was able to find other relief Doctors to fill in my other slots. However, no one would take the day after Christmas. I did not feel comfortable going back on my word, so I still had staff come in, but worked at the practice in Champaign. This is the last obligation that I have from my 'previous life' as a relief Doctor. :-)

Christmas Eve is a special day in our family. I remember as a child looking forward to the evening meal, when we would have the seven fishes dinner. It is an Italian tradition.

I can hear you now - Dr Ramirez - your name does not sound Italian. You're right, it does not. However, my mom's maiden name is Belott, and as we learned from looking at the ship manifesto on Ellis Island in New York, it was originally 'Biletto' and was changed to 'Belott' when my mom's grandfather came to the US from Avelino Italy.

Anyway, we continued to go to the meal after Kelly and I were married because we enjoyed it so much. When we had children, we started our own tradition of also having the 7 fishes meal.

When my dad was seriously ill, I invited my family to come to our house, and we had the Christmas Eve dinner at our house. That was in 1998. The next year, I invited my extended family to our house again, and we had 16 people there! Since then we have continued the tradition, only we moved it up to a 'lunchtime' dinner. My wife and I also invited some friends one year when my Mom went to Florida. It has continued to grow, and we had 22 people this year!

I pray all of you had a very Merry Christmas.

Welcome

Welcome to the Lakeview Veterinary Clinic Blog site. We will give you a glimpse into the world behind Lakeview Veterinary Clinic in East Peoria, Illinois.

I'm Dr Ray Ramirez, and I am very excited to be at the practice. We 'closed' and signed the papers fo the practice is officially ours on Monday, December 17, the day before my daughter, Elyse's 6th birthday.

Thank you for stoping by and come back again. We are planning on having an option where you can get email announcements when we update the Blog. If you are familiar with rss feeds, you should be able to use that also through the Feedblitz widget. If you did not understand that last sentence, that is ok also! :-)