How to Become a Vet Assistant and Decide if it’s the Right Career for You

You love animals and working in a fast-paced environment with lots of other employees. You enjoy connecting with customers and helping educate clients. If this sounds like you, you may be a fit for an exciting career in veterinary assisting. Veterinary assistants are the backbone of a vet office, helping speak to pet owners and managing animals.

Learn how to become a vet assistant, what the job entails, and the skills you’ll need.

Why Become a Vet Assistant?

If you love caring for animals, you can choose to pursue a career that allows you to care for them all day. The work you do as a vet assistant lets you take an active role in promoting animal health and their overall well-being. You’ll perform a variety of routine animal care tasks and assist veterinarians and veterinary technicians in treating injured and ill animals.

A benefit of being a vet assistant is being part of a care team that is as passionate as you about animal health. Working side by side, you and your team members can share in the satisfaction of helping animals to be at their peak health.

What Skills Do You Need to be a Veterinary Assistant?

Veterinary assistants should be able to communicate with pet owners and the rest of the veterinary team. They also should be able to do routine tasks such as cleaning and grooming animals. Some of these skills can be learned, either on the job or at a Veterinary Assisting program, but other skills may need to be innate to candidates considering this career.

According to O*NET Online, some essential veterinary assistant skills and abilities include:2

• Active Listening — Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Monitoring — Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
• Service Orientation — Actively looking for ways to help people.
• Active Learning — Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
• Complex Problem Solving — Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
• Coordination — Adjusting actions in relation to others’ actions.
• Critical Thinking — Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• Reading Comprehension — Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
• Social Perceptiveness — Being aware of others’ reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
• Problem Sensitivity — The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Deductive Reasoning — The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Arm-Hand Steadiness — The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
• Inductive Reasoning — The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions.
• Information Ordering — The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules.
• Manual Dexterity — The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
• Trunk Strength — The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without ‘giving out’ or fatiguing.

Who is Right for Veterinary Assisting?

With vet assistant attributes – including skills and abilities – covered, what else makes someone a good candidate for a job as a veterinarian’s assistant? There are some core values and personality traits that may make you more successful.

Love Animals

Loving animals is a given for a vet assistant. It’s unlikely you’d be interested in joining a veterinary office if you didn’t at least have a soft spot for furry friends. But take note if you have any animals you dislike. Not all veterinarians will work with animals like reptiles or birds, but if you have an aversion to either you should make sure you don’t work in a clinic that treats them.

Empathy

While most people think of veterinary medicine for the good times, the fact of the matter is that many animals end up at vets’ offices because they are seriously ill. As a vet assistant, you may be speaking with worried pet parents. Make sure you have compassion and empathy to help relate to someone who may be at risk of losing a pet.

Emotional Resilience

Veterinary assistants help out with all aspects of a veterinary office, from restraining animals to dealing with owners to helping at the front desk. When emotions are running high, it’s important that a vet assistant not become overwhelmed.

Attention to Detail

A big part of a vet assistant’s job is keeping the area comfortable, clean and sanitary. With germy animals around, this isn’t time to cut corners. The best vet assistants know how to make sure they get everything done right the first time and take pride in the quality of their work.

Best States to Work as a Vet Assistant

Since veterinary care is available in all states, there is no bad location to pursue a career in veterinary assisting. However, there are higher wages and employment opportunities in some areas.

According to the BLS, the states with the largest employment of veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers in May 2022 were:4

States with the highest concentration of jobs and location quotients in Veterinary Assistants and Laboratory Animal Caretakers in May 2022:4

Launch a Career in Veterinary Assisting With Carrington College

For those who are interested in a career in veterinary assisting, Carrington College’s comprehensive Veterinary Assisting program offers hands-on experience so students are ready to work in a veterinary office in as few as nine months. Students learn animal anatomy and physiology, nursing skills, animal surgical assisting, pharmaceutical chemistry and application, animal restraint and patient services, and front office skills. To learn more about if our Veterinary Assisting program is right for you, request more information.

Carrington’s Veterinary Assisting Faculty and Students

Carrington College takes great pride in our successful staff and students. Our campuses provide a small college experience where you can get the attention you deserve. At all of our facilities, your instructor will not only know you by name, but they can also get to know you as a person. You will know what to expect from your career in the real world because many of our instructors bring practical working experience from their field into the classroom.

We’re invested in our students’ success and offer career services to help you find externships and job opportunities. Our students thrive in our hands-on, collaborative environment, which mimics what it’s like to work in a veterinary office or hospital.

Find Veterinary Assisting Programs Near Me

Carrington’s Veterinary Assisting program is offered at five locations in:

• Mesa, Arizona
• Phoenix, Arizona
• Portland, Oregon
• Spokane, Washington
• Tucson, Arizona

Vet Assisting FAQ

How Much Does a Vet Assistant Make?

Like other occupations, the money that a veterinary assistant can earn may vary widely based on several factors.

Some of these factors may include the geographical location and setting in which they work, the number of scheduled work hours, and the training, education, and skill level they have achieved as a veterinary assistant.