What Can I Do as a Veterinary Assistant?

 

If your life’s goal is to work with animals, becoming a vet assistant allows you to do that.  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 fulfilling. 

 Being a vet assistant could also be a steppingstone to a higher-paying career, such as becoming a veterinary technician or managing a clinic.  After working closely nursing animals and saving lives, you may even decide you want to commit to getting your Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree and become a veterinarian!   But one step at a time… 

 

What Is a Vet Assistant’s Job Like?

As a vet assistant, you will offer support to the veterinarians and veterinary technicians where you work.  Sometimes, the work may be clerical; you could be tasked with front-office work such as making appointments, filing paperwork, taking payments, and welcoming patients.  

The job will definitely involve a lot of cleaning and sanitizing of examination rooms, operating rooms, and kennels.  Most importantly, though, being a vet assistant will put you in close contact with animals every single day.   

Without a vet tech or DVM degree, vet assistants are limited in the type of medical care they can provide.  Vet assistants are restricted to administering only certain types of medications, can perform nursing tasks like taking vital signs, assisting with post-operative care, collecting lab samples and communicating with clients.  

This does not mean vet assistants don’t work closely with animals, though.  Far from it!   

Vet assistants get to:  

• Bathe and groom animals
• Exercise animals
• Feed animals
• Pet and calm anxious animals
• Help restrain animals during examinations or procedures
• And, of course, they get to snuggle all the adorable puppies and kittens that come through the door! (maybe some bunnies too)

 

Veterinary Assistants Are Not Limited to Veterinary Clinics

Vet assistants are not limited to working in veterinary practices and animal hospitals.  Below are some examples of facilities and businesses that involve animals and hire vet assistants as support staff. 

• Humane societies, dog and cat rescues, and animal shelters often advertise vet assistant openings.  Many animals that come into these facilities are sick, malnourished, and in need of a lot of love, patience, and care.
• Lots of universities maintain research labs that house a variety of animals requiring care and monitoring.  A quick search for vet assistant positions always turns up a sizable number of jobs in these facilities.
• For profit businesses like kennels, doggy day cares, pet resorts, spas, and pet stores frequently hire veterinary assistants.
• If your interest is in exotic animals, zoos need vet assistants and there are also veterinary practices that specialize in rare or exotic animals.

• Wildlife requires veterinary care as well sometimes. Vet assistants are often needed in wildlife refuges, rehabilitation centers, and conservation facilities.
• If you have an interest in one specific species, there is probably a sanctuary or refuge for it.  There are sanctuaries for elephants, wolves, raptors, big cats, primates, parrots, tortoises, wild horses, and more, as well as every type of farm animal from chickens to draft horses and of course dogs and cats.

 

Vet Assistants Enjoy Job Satisfaction

Becoming a vet assistant might not make you rich in monetary terms, but the job provides its own – some might say greater – reward: job satisfaction.  When you get to go to work every day and provide loving care for animals, there is a sense of fulfillment that money cannot buy.  

 You may even love it so much that you want to take that step of going on to be a vet tech.  Having the experience of being a vet assistant can make vet tech school a little easier–you will already have witnessed many of the procedures and conditions in the curriculum.  A little inside knowledge never hurts! 

If you think vet assisting sounds like an ideal career fit for you, why not learn more about it?  You can become a certified vet assistant in about 12 months online through Animal Behavior College. ABC has been training people in animal careers since 1998.  To speak to an admissions counselor, call 800-795-3294.