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Get a degree in Animal Care. Earn a great living with a career in Animal Care.

Further your career with classes or start your career off right with the right education. Online Training or Online Classes maybe available!

We as a nation have an ongoing love affair with animals. Americans own and care for 48 million dogs, 25 million cats, 23 million birds, 12 million exotic pets and 340 million fish. Although many of us enjoy and appreciate animals, making them your career calls for something special. Among the elements of aptitude you will need is good health. Animal care is physically and mentally demanding, far from the glamorous work too often portrayed in the media. Ministering to an ailing horse may be a round-the-clock job. Placing radio transmitters on hibernating black bears to track their later movements will call for wilderness survival skills as well as physical strength and a high degree of courage. Whether you are rescuing ducks from an oil spill, changing cat cages in a veterinary clinic, or training dogs for a show ring, your aptitude must include an almost inborn affinity for animals.

Annual salary range is from $15,000-$35,000

Animal care jobs are expected to grow faster than average for all occupations though the year 2006.

Employers generally prefer to hire people with some experience with animals. Training programs are available for specific types of animal caretakers.

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Job Descriptions

Animal Caretakers
Also referred to as animal attendants, perform daily duties that include feeding, grooming, cleaning, and exercising animals. Kennels, pet stores, animal shelters, laboratories, zoos, and veterinary facilities all employ caretakers.

Equine Studies
Feed and water horses, saddle and unsaddle them, give them rubdowns, and walk them through cool-offs after riding. Other duties include cleaning out stalls, grooming the horses, storing feed and supplies and, with experience, horse training..

Horse Shoeing
If you love animals and the outdoors, and you would like to work for yourself, then the Farrier Trade could be for you! Learn about the difference between keg shoes to corrective shoeing to handmade shoes. Work in the great outdoors shoeing horses and working with hammer, anvil and forge, building custom and therapeutic shoes for their clients' horses.

Veterinary Technician
Veterinary Technicians have completed formal studies and work in veterinary offices, animal laboratories, and animal hospitals. They prepare animals for surgery and assist during medical procedures. They also keep records.

Veterinary Clinical Assistant
Veterinary assistants assist veterinarians or veterinarian technicians. They feed and bathe animals and administer medications as well. They inspect animals for sores or signs of illness that could spread to other animals. The work is sometimes hard, repetitious, and dirty. Animals constantly need to be fed, watered and exercised, and to have their living spaces cleaned.

Veterinary Assistants
Veterinary assistants assist veterinarians or veterinarian technicians. They feed and bathe animals and administer medications as well. They inspect animals for sores or signs of illness that could spread to other animals. The work is sometimes hard, repetitious, and dirty. Animals constantly need to be fed, watered and exercised, and to have their living spaces cleaned.

Search our College Directory for a College near you that offers Animal Care Degrees

Information from The Fastest Growing Careers for the 21st Century