If your life’s purpose is to work with animals, become a veterinary assistant allows you to do so. As an animal lover, just spending your days at a job where you can help animals be healthy and well cared for can be extremely rewarding.
Being a vet assistant could also be a stepping stone to a higher-paying career, like becoming a vet tech or running a clinic. After working closely with animals and saving lives, you might even decide to commit to earning your Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree and becoming a veterinarian! But one step at a time…
What does the job of a veterinary assistant look like?
As a Veterinary Assistant, you will provide support to the veterinarians and veterinary technicians where you work. Sometimes the work can be clerical; you may be responsible for front-office tasks such as booking appointments, filing documents, taking payments and greeting patients.
The job will certainly involve a lot of cleaning and sanitizing of exam rooms, operating rooms and kennels. But more importantly, being a veterinary assistant will put you in close contact with animals every day.
Without a vet tech or DVM degree, vet assistants are limited in the type of medical care they can provide. Veterinary assistants are limited to administering certain types of medications and may perform nursing duties such as taking vital signs, assisting with postoperative care, collecting lab samples, and communicating with clients.
This does not mean, however, that veterinary assistants do not work closely with animals. Far from there!
Veterinary assistants have access to:
- Bathe and groom animals
- exercise animals
- Feed the animals
- Pet and calm anxious animals
- Assist in restraining animals during examinations or procedures
- And of course, they can cuddle all the adorable puppies and kittens that come through the door! (maybe some bunnies too)
Vet assistants are not limited to veterinary clinics
Veterinary assistants are not limited to working in veterinary practices and veterinary hospitals. Below are some examples of facilities and businesses that involve animals and hire veterinary assistants as support staff.
- Humane societies, dog and cat rescues and animal shelters often advertise openings for veterinary assistants. Many animals that enter these facilities are sick, malnourished, and in need of lots of love, patience, and care.
- A lot of the universities maintain research laboratories that house a variety of animals requiring care and monitoring. A quick search for veterinary assistant positions always reveals a significant number of jobs at these establishments.
- For-profit companies like kennels, dog day care centers, pet resorts, spas and pet stores frequently hire veterinary assistants.
- If you are interested in exotic animals, zoos need for veterinary assistants and there are also veterinary practices specializing in rare or exotic animals.
- Wildlife sometimes also requires veterinary care. Veterinary assistants are often needed wildlife refuges, rehabilitation centers and conservation facilities.
- If you are interested in a specific species, there is probably a sanctuary or refuge for that. There are sanctuaries for elephants, wolves, raptors, big cats, primates, parrots, tortoises, wild horses, etc., as well as all types of farm animals, from chickens to farm horses. trait, including of course dogs and cats.
Vet assistants enjoy job satisfaction
Becoming a vet assistant may not make you wealthy in monetary terms, but the job offers its own – some would say greater – reward: job satisfaction. When you go to work every day and provide loving care to animals, you experience a sense of fulfillment that money can’t buy.
You may even love it so much that you want to take the plunge and become a vet tech. Having vet assistant experience can make vet tech school a little easier — you’ll have already witnessed many of the program’s procedures and requirements. A little inside knowledge never hurts!
If you think being a vet assistant sounds like an ideal career for you, why not learn more about it? You can become a Certified Veterinary Assistant in about 12 months online via College of Animal Behavior. ABC has been training people in animal careers since 1998. To speak with an admissions counselor, call 800-795-3294.