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Animal Care Careers: How to Break in Without the 7-Year Itch of Veterinary School
Animal Care Careers: How to Break in Without the
7-Year Itch of Veterinary School
 When it comes to animal-related careers, most people immediately think of veterinarians. However, there are many other career options that don't involve the large investments of time and money that are necessary to become a licensed veterinarian. If you think your career passion is in the field of animal care, there are many options available, so take the time to explore what area of critter care would be the best fit for you.
Thinking Outside the Career Box
When considering a career in the animal care field, first ask yourself what it is you enjoy doing. Do you love spending time pampering your four-legged family members, or do you enjoy being more physically active with your pets, teaching them new tricks or maybe even participating in dog competitions? Have you always known that caring for sick or injured animals is your calling, or do you wish there was a way to combine your interest in business with your love for animals?
Check out the training options outlined below to find an animal-related career that matches your talents and interests.
Pampered Pets
If you can picture spending your working days with furry friends, pampering them and helping them to look and feel their best, you may want to consider a career as a pet groomer.
Pet groomer training can give you a broad knowledge of both dog and cat breeds, and the proper grooming styles and techniques that are associated with them. You can become a master with the clippers, ensuring a poodle is competition-ready, or making it easier for a bouvier to handle the heat of summer.
In addition, you can gain knowledge of a variety of skin and other health conditions, which will allow you to inform owners of any abnormal bumps, cuts, skin conditions, or other health concerns that can sometimes go unnoticed beneath a shaggy coat.
Pet groomer programs can be completed in as little as six months, and prepare you to work in a pet store, grooming salon, or even open your own pet grooming business!
A Fetching Career Choice
You know that dogs are capable of much, much more than "sit," "lie down," "roll over," and "fetch"—and you want to help them reach their full potential. Dog obedience training can prepare you for this exciting career choice.
As a dog obedience trainer, you can teach dogs to become a well-socialized and obedient member of the family, a vital aid to police during search and rescue missions, or even a caring friend and assistant to people with disabilities, such as blindness.
Dog obedience training will teach you techniques for conditioning dogs to signals and voice commands using repetition and positive reinforcement, including praise, affection, treats, and toys. You can also gain a thorough understanding of dog behaviour, instincts, and forms of communication.
Dog obedience programs can be completed in less than a year and will help you graduate prepared to start up your own dog training business.
Compassionate Careers with Critters
If you have all the compassion and drive to enter the healthcare field, but would prefer to work with animals instead of humans, a career as a veterinary assistant or veterinary technician could be the perfect fit.
By training to become a vet tech or vet assistant, you can graduate ready to help with the care of sick and injured animals without taking on the substantial amount of money and time required of licensed veterinarians. These positions often allow you to assist during surgical procedures and postoperative care, plus administer medications and prepare lab samples.
You can also gain a solid knowledge of radiography, nutrition, dentistry, disease, and injury—preparing you to perform a comprehensive examination of an animal, from dogs and cats to birds and reptiles, or even wildlife.
Many veterinary assistant and vet tech programs allow you to graduate in just one year, ready to pursue careers such as animal control specialist, veterinary assistant, veterinary technician, stable manager, pet nutritionist, animal caretaker, and Humane Society worker.
Frisky Business
If you would love nothing more than to spend your days working with animals, but also want the challenge of taking on business and technical duties, entering the workforce as a veterinary office manager could be your ideal career future.
Veterinary office management training can provide you with a strong business background in both general office and specialized veterinary office management skills. Included among the topics you can study are sales, accounting, management, organization, communication, and computer applications.
You can also gain vital animal care knowledge that will allow you to assist with common surgeries and postoperative care. In addition, your training can arm you with a solid background in animal breeds, nutrition, vaccinations, pharmacology, and more.
Many veterinary office management programs can be completed in less than a year. Your training could lead to exciting positions in animal hospitals, veterinary clinics, animal daycares, wildlife shelters, animal welfare organizations, or kennels.
The Next Step
If you are ready to get proactive about your future in the animal care industry, take the next step today and get more information about the available animal-related schools and programs by checking out this guide to animal care schools.
For further reading, check out the following article: "How to Work with Animals without Being a Veterinarian."
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