Animal Care and Service Worker
The idea of an Animal Care and Service worker is basically to raise animals in
zoos, homes, and many other places. To do this, you have to feed, water, bathe, exercise,
clean up after, train, and observe the animals on a daily basis. As an Animal Care and
Service worker you can take care of animals in a zoo, train animals for special jobs, or
teach obedience classes to household pets. This job is not as easy as it seems, it could
cause physical and emotional stress.
Within some jobs of this career, you may only need a high-school diploma to be
hired. However, most jobs require a lot of on-the-job training and some higher-end jobs
would expect a bachelor’s degree in biology, animal science, or a related field. Although
the jobs only require a high-school diploma, as in any job, the better the degree; the
higher chance of success in the job.
Depending on which field you go the wages, as well as the hours, will vary. The
average salary for this career varies from about $8.50 to $23.00 per hour. Although this is
not a “get rich quick” type of job, the longer you are at the job the more you will get paid.
Many jobs today are very hard to find openings for and you may find some
problems finding a job depending on what you are looking to do. Some of the jobs in this
field are in very high demand for workers, and some are hard to find openings for. The
higher educated people tend to go into the marine biology and zoology fields where it is
hardest to find jobs. However, people retire and jobs open up.
With this career the top employers would be zoos, veterinary clinics, animal
shelters, and animal trainers. On the other hand, zoos would require excessive dedication
to the animals and work through weekends and holidays, clinics and shelters can cause
emotional stress due to the mistreatment of animals these days, and animal trainers would
generally work with companies. Despite these problems, there are many positive aspects
of these jobs.
My favorite part about this job is that you get to be around all sorts of exotic
animals. Most, if not all, of the animals you will encounter during your job experience are
animals that you would not see your entire life otherwise. Another interesting, but not so
exciting, thing is that you would have to work everyday no matter what holiday it is
because animals need food, water, attention, and much more, every day of there lives.