Animal Care Assistant
Tails On Trails Pet Resort
Do you love dogs — but also understand that caring for them professionally takes a lot more than just playing with puppies?
Tails On Trails Pet Resort is growing, and we’re looking for a dependable, hardworking Animal Care Assistant to join our team.
Our Animal Care Assistants play an important role in the everyday care, safety, comfort, and happiness of the dogs entrusted to us. We maintain high standards for cleanliness, safety, enrichment, and individualized care, and we’re looking for someone who takes those responsibilities as seriously as we do.
What You’ll Be Doing
Your responsibilities will include:
- Supervising dogs during daycare and structured play
- Taking dogs outside for potty breaks, exercise, and enrichment
- Feeding boarding dogs according to their individual feeding instructions
- Providing fresh water and monitoring dogs throughout the day
- Cleaning and sanitizing kennels, daycare areas, bowls, floors, and common areas
- Assisting with enrichment activities and individual one-on-one time
- Maintaining a calm, safe, and structured daycare environment
- Monitoring dogs for changes in behavior, appetite, energy level, or physical condition
- Safely handling dogs of different breeds, sizes, personalities, and energy levels
- Assisting with boarding and daycare arrivals and departures
- Keeping the facility clean, organized, and ready for our guests
- Communicating important information about the dogs in our care to management and other team members
Cleaning is a significant part of this position. Keeping our facility exceptionally clean is an important part of providing quality animal care.
What We’re Looking For
We’re looking for someone who is:
- Dependable, punctual, and responsible
- Genuinely passionate about animals
- Comfortable and confident around dogs of all sizes, including large and strong breeds
- Calm and patient when working with animals
- Observant and able to recognize changes in a dog’s behavior
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment
- Able to follow established procedures and instructions
- Comfortable working independently when necessary
- A strong team player and communicator
- Willing to clean and isn’t afraid of getting dirty
- Able to be on their feet for extended periods
- Able to safely lift approximately 50 lbs
- Comfortable working both indoors and outdoors in varying Vermont weather conditions
- Must have reliable transportation to and from work
Previous experience working in dog daycare, boarding, veterinary care, shelters, rescues, grooming facilities, or other professional animal-care environments is a plus.
However, we’re willing to train the right person with the right attitude, reliability, work ethic, and willingness to learn.
Schedule & Availability
Dogs need care 365 days a year. Applicants should be available for a combination of:
- Weekdays
- Weekends
- Early mornings and/or evenings
- Holidays
- Busy vacation and ski-season periods
Reliability is extremely important in this position. Our dogs and the rest of the team depend on everyone arriving when they’re scheduled.
Four-Week Probationary Period
All new Animal Care Assistants begin with a four-week introductory/probationary period.
This gives both you and Tails On Trails an opportunity to make sure the position is a good fit. During this period, we’ll evaluate reliability, attendance, animal handling, safety, cleanliness, ability to follow procedures, communication, teamwork, and overall job performance.
Drug & Alcohol-Free Workplace
Tails On Trails Pet Resort maintains a drug- and alcohol-free workplace and a zero-tolerance policy regarding employees working or reporting to work impaired.
Because our employees are responsible for the safety and well-being of animals, coworkers, and customers, safe and responsible conduct is a condition of employment.
Employee Perks
Working at Tails On Trails comes with some pretty great four-legged coworkers — plus additional employee perks that may include:
- Employee discounts on pet products and supplies
- Discounted pet care, daycare, and boarding
- Discounts on select food and retail products
- Opportunities for hands-on training in professional dog handling and animal care
- Opportunities to learn more about canine behavior and enrichment
- Flexible scheduling when operationally possible
- Opportunities for additional responsibilities and advancement as Tails On Trails continues to grow
- Potential opportunities to bring your own dog to work when appropriate and approved
And, of course, you’ll spend your workday surrounded by dogs.
About Tails On Trails
Tails On Trails Pet Resort provides professional doggy daycare, boarding, enrichment, adventure, and pet-care services in Southern Vermont.
Our approach is centered around quality of care, cleanliness, structure, enrichment, safety, and treating every dog as an individual.
We’re building a team of people who take pride in the level of care we provide and want to be part of raising the standard for pet care in our community.
This can be an incredibly fun and rewarding job — but it’s also physical, sometimes messy, and comes with real responsibility. The dogs staying with us are someone’s family, and we expect them to be treated that way.
Interested?
Please submit your resume along with a short introduction answering these two questions:
Why do you want to work with animals?
What makes you someone we can depend on to care for other people’s dogs?
We look forward to meeting you — and introducing you to the pack.
Pay: $15.00 - $25.00 per hour
Benefits:
- Employee discount
- Flexible schedule
Work Location: In person
