You become an animal care technician the direct way: a high school diploma or equivalent, hands-on animal experience employers prefer, and a hired application — no required certification, with the training happening on the job.
Certification is optional and route-specific: Fear Free's shelter program is free for shelter, rescue and animal welfare employees and volunteers, and the research credential is AALAS's three-level ladder.
This page covers the requirements, which experience counts where, the optional credentials, and where to apply first.
What are the minimum requirements to become an animal care technician?
The title is an employer label for hands-on animal caretaking — the animal care technician role guide covers what the job involves day to day.
This page is about getting into it, and the entry bar is low and plainly described: BLS says animal care and service workers typically have a high school diploma or equivalent and learn the occupation on the job, and many employers prefer to hire people who already have experience with animals.
The research side reads the same way.
Research-facility animal care work sits in the federal occupation veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers (SOC 31-9096), and BLS says most of those workers have a high school diploma or equivalent and learn on the job.
No certification is required to be hired into the title — BLS puts the role of credentials plainly for this tier of work: certifications are not required, but they may help workers establish their credentials and enhance their skills.
That sentence is the strategy of this whole page — the job asks for almost nothing on paper, so everything you add is about being the candidate who gets picked, not about clearing a gate.
The exception worth knowing about up front: some public shelter systems — Los Angeles among them — hire through civil-service exams with concrete, written requirements.
Those are covered under where to apply, below.
What experience counts toward an animal care technician job?
Experience is the actual currency at this tier.
But "counts" depends on which ledger you are feeding, and there are two very different ones.
For getting hired, the ledger is generous.
Hands-on animal time is the evidence employers look for: kennel and boarding shifts, shelter volunteering, farm work, foster litters.
Municipal systems make it formal: Los Angeles' Animal Care Technician exam, as described in a December 2022 Animal Services report for that administration, required 1,040 hours of paid or volunteer experience caring for companion animals, which had to include dogs, cats or rabbits, or 3 semester units (4 quarter units) in animal health or animal care.
Read that carefully — volunteer hours counted toward a paid city job.
For AALAS research certification, the ledger is strict.
Volunteer experience and classroom or lab-course hours do not count as work experience toward certification, and veterinary clinics, zoos and pet stores do not meet AALAS's definition of a "laboratory animal facility."
Structured placements inside a real lab animal facility are the exception — externships, internships, preceptorships and fellowships count hour for hour.
Non-lab animal work can still count, at a steep discount: AALAS credits non-laboratory animal experience at a rate of 6 months of non-lab experience = 1 month of lab animal experience, up to 3 years of it.
The practical takeaway: keep a log of your hours, dates and duties as you go.
The same Saturday at a shelter is an application line for a municipal job like Los Angeles' and nothing toward a research credential — knowing which ledger an hour feeds is how you aim your time.
Ask the employer what they count
Which certifications help? AALAS ALAT, Fear Free and shelter training
No credential is required for this job, so treat certifications as route-specific add-ons rather than steps on a required ladder.
Research route: the AALAS ladder.
AALAS certifies three levels of laboratory animal technician: Assistant Laboratory Animal Technician (ALAT), Laboratory Animal Technician (LAT) and Laboratory Animal Technologist (LATG).
ALAT is the entry rung, and its eligibility is experience-plus-education math: 2 years of lab animal work experience with no education requirement, or a high school diploma or GED plus 1 year, or an associate or bachelor's degree plus 6 months.
BLS's framing of what certification demonstrates for this tier of work is competency in animal husbandry, health and welfare, and facility administration — and its bottom line is that certification is not mandatory, but lets workers demonstrate it.
If your experience comes from a clinic, a zoo or a pet store, read the eligibility rules closely before counting on it, because AALAS does not count those workplaces as laboratory animal facilities.
What the exam costs, where clinic and other non-lab hours fit, and how LAT and LATG differ: our ALAT certification guide explains the levels side by side.
Shelter route: Fear Free.
Fear Free's Shelter Program is free for all shelter, rescue and animal welfare employees and volunteers — which makes it the rare add-on you can earn before anyone hires you, at no cost but your time.
If shelters are your target employers, it is the obvious first move.
Employers set their own certification rules — and certifiers change theirs
Where should you apply first?
Four kinds of employer hire this title, and they weigh a first application differently.
Municipal shelter systems.
The clearest example of the title inside a formal system is the City of Los Angeles, which uses Animal Care Technician (class code 4310) as a civil-service shelter title.
Municipal hiring runs through exams and eligible lists, and the requirements are written down — the 1,040 companion-animal hours or college units described above — but they are set per administration: Los Angeles notes that requirements for each job classification can change with each administration of the civil service exam.
Read the current bulletin, not a blog post about a past one.
Research facilities and universities.
Research employers write their own bars.
The University of New Mexico's Lab Animal Tech 1 class, for example, requires a high school diploma or GED and at least 6 months of directly related experience, which can include a college-level practicum.
The occupation also exists as a formal apprenticeship route — "Veterinary/Lab Animal Tech" is a U.S. Department of Labor registered apprenticeship title.
Our laboratory animal technician guide covers that world in full.
Nonprofit shelters and rescues.
No civil-service exam stands in front of these jobs — hiring screens for what BLS says many employers prefer anyway: experience with animals.
What the roles are and what each pays is in our guide to jobs at an animal shelter.
Clinic kennel wards.
Animal hospitals with boarding or ward space can be a fourth door in: the kennel attendant title is the same tier of hands-on work, and it puts you in the building next to the clinical team.
On VeterinaryHires, animal care technician postings run through the kennel attendant category — browse the current openings.
Starting from zero animal experience?
The sequencing — volunteer first, then what to put on the application — is its own guide: animal shelter jobs for teens and people with no experience.
How do you move up from animal care technician?
The title is a starting rung in three directions, each with a documented example of the ladder.
Up the municipal ladder.
Los Angeles' career ladder runs from Animal Care Technician (4310) to Animal Care Technician Supervisor (4313), with a lateral move to Animal Control Officer (4311) — technician to supervisor, animal control as the sideways step.
Deeper into research.
The AALAS ladder continues past ALAT through LAT to LATG, and a university system can build certification into the title itself — Missouri's six-month rule, above, is the example.
The ALAT certification guide maps the levels and what each demands.
Into the clinic, and toward the credentialed technician route.
Clinic-side, the adjacent step is veterinary assistant: kennel attendant to veterinary assistant in 12 months maps that move month by month, and the same plan works from a shelter or clinic-kennel job.
The bigger step is the credentialed veterinary technician.
BLS says technicians usually need a 2-year associate's degree from a veterinary technology program — technologists usually a 4-year bachelor's — and typically must pass a credentialing exam and become registered, licensed or certified, depending on the state.
AAVSB, the body behind the Veterinary Technician National Exam (VTNE), states that most states and provinces require a passing score for a technician to be credentialed.
The schooling and the exam are the usual gate — the animal care technician job is where you find out, on real animals and real shifts, whether you want to commit to the program.
For the credentialed version of this same shelter and lab work, see shelter and laboratory-animal tech careers.
The title does not set legal scope — state law does