A kennel attendant — also posted as kennel assistant, kennel worker or kennel technician — feeds, waters and exercises animals, cleans cages and dog runs, and does much of the work overnight, in place of owners.
The federal government counts the job under Animal Caretakers (SOC 39-2021), a category spanning kennels, animal shelters, zoos, circuses and aquariums, with veterinary clinics one employer among many.
BLS lists a high school diploma as the typical entry-level education for the work, learned on the job.
What is a kennel attendant?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines the role directly: kennel attendants "care for pets, often overnight, in place of owners," and "clean cages and dog runs and feed, exercise, and play with animals."
The same work is posted under several names — kennel attendant, kennel assistant, kennel worker, kennel technician — and O*NET lists Kennel Attendant and Kennel Technician among the sample job titles for the animal-caretaker occupation.
The nouns aren't ranks or credentials; what differs between postings can be the building, the assigned duties and the pay.
Kennel attendant vs kennel assistant vs kennel technician compares the three labels in full.
That definition sits inside a much larger federal occupation code, Animal Caretakers (SOC 39-2021), which also covers groomers, zookeepers, aquarists and shelter attendants.
The title "kennel attendant" is one job inside that code, not a synonym for it.
Nationally, BLS counts about 365,300 jobs in the Animal Caretakers occupation as a whole.
That distinction matters for anyone reading pay or growth data for this occupation, because the numbers describe the whole group — not specifically the person cleaning runs at a veterinary hospital.
It's also worth separating kennel attendant from a related but distinct title: animal trainer.
BLS counts trainers as their own occupation — its animal care and service workers projections cover caretakers and trainers together — but the work differs: a kennel attendant feeds, cleans and exercises; a trainer teaches.
What does a kennel attendant do? Day-to-day duties and responsibilities
Per BLS, these are the core kennel attendant job duties — the list a kennel attendant job description draws from:
- Feeding and watering animals
- Cleaning cages and dog runs
- Exercising and playing with animals
- Basic grooming — bathing animals and attending to other basic grooming needs; O*NET's task list for the occupation also names washing, brushing, clipping, trimming coats, cutting nails and cleaning ears
- Caring for pets often overnight, in place of owners
Experienced attendants may also provide basic healthcare — BLS's own addition to the list.
And the occupation's definition carries a catch-all: providing "care to promote and maintain the well-being" of the animals, which is what the whole list is in service of.
In a boarding setting, the care often runs overnight — BLS's description is care "in place of owners" — and schedules may include evenings, weekends and holidays.
Where the employer is a veterinary clinic, it is the same job — feeding, cleaning and exercising the animals in the practice's kennels — whatever else the posting adds to it.
BLS also notes that part-time work is common in this occupation, and that in facilities operating 24 hours a day, such as kennels, animals may need care around the clock.
That schedule reality is worth weighing before taking the job, not after.
The physical part is real
Where kennel attendants actually work
This is the single most misunderstood part of the job, so the numbers are worth stating plainly.
BLS breaks down where Animal Caretakers are employed: 40% in other personal services (the industry group that includes pet care such as grooming and boarding), 25% self-employed, 10% in professional, scientific and technical services (the group that contains veterinary services), 9% in retail trade (pet retailers among them), and 5% in arts, entertainment and recreation (the zoos and aquariums side).
Put plainly: roughly one in ten people counted in this occupation works in the industry group that includes veterinary clinics.
The other nine in ten are spread across other personal services, self-employment, retail trade, and arts, entertainment and recreation.
So when a national pay or growth figure gets quoted for "kennel attendants," it is mostly describing the boarding-and-grooming and self-employed share, not the veterinary-clinic minority.
Neither is wrong to call a kennel attendant — but they are different jobs with different day-to-day realities, and a clinic posting for the role may look and pay differently from a boarding-kennel posting.
Kennel attendant vs. veterinary assistant
These are two different federal occupations, and the difference is about setting and task, not seniority.
A veterinary assistant is its own occupation — SOC 31-9096, which BLS reports jointly with laboratory animal caretakers — while a kennel attendant sits in Animal Caretakers (SOC 39-2021), a code that spans boarding, shelters, retail, zoos and the small share in the industry group that includes clinics.
BLS lists a high school diploma as the typical entry-level education for both, and moving from kennel work into assistant work is a job change, not an automatic promotion.
See kennel attendant vs veterinary assistant: the real difference for the full comparison — duties, the two roles' separate BLS aggregation problems, pay, and whether kennel experience counts toward anything on paper.
Do you need a credential?
No. BLS lists the entry-level education for animal caretakers as a high school diploma or equivalent, and the work is learned on the job — the employer trains you into the role rather than expecting you to arrive already able to do it.
Our research found no license or certification attached to the kennel attendant title — the entry bar in BLS's description is the diploma and on-the-job learning.
Confirm the specifics against any posting you apply to.
That low bar is part of why the role is a realistic first job for someone testing out whether they want to work around animals at all, clinically or otherwise, before committing to further schooling.
How much does a kennel attendant make?
BLS puts the median at $35,360 a year, or $17.00 an hour, with the middle half of earners between $29,820 and $40,050.
The bottom tenth earn $27,250 or less; the top tenth $50,060 or more (OEWS, May 2025, SOC 39-2021).
O*NET lists Kennel Attendant and Kennel Technician among the sample titles for this one occupation, and BLS reports pay for the occupation — not for the noun on the posting — so there is one series here, not one per title.
What moves the number is the setting and the data base, not the label.
The full percentile breakdown and the veterinary-services figure sit on the kennel attendant salary page.
The same caveat from the settings breakdown applies here: this is a national aggregate covering boarding, grooming, retail and self-employed workers alongside the small clinic-based share, so treat it as the shape of the broader market rather than a precise read on veterinary-clinic pay specifically.
For comparison, the veterinary assistant occupation sits at a median of $38,150 — a modest step up, and a different occupation rather than a raise within this one, though that figure carries its own combined-occupation caveat too (it's Veterinary Assistants and Laboratory Animal Caretakers, SOC 31-9096).
On growth, BLS projects 12% job growth from 2025 to 2035 for the Animal Caretakers occupation as a whole — though that projection, too, describes the full aggregate rather than clinic-based kennel roles specifically.
National figures, aggregate occupation
Kennel attendant, or a step toward veterinary work?
For a lot of people, this is the job — hands-on animal care with a high-school-diploma entry bar — and boarding facilities, shelters and veterinary clinics are all among the settings that employ it.
For others, it's a way to spend time around animals and a veterinary environment before deciding whether to pursue clinical work.
Be clear-eyed about what the job doesn't do: it confers no credential.
Moving up means applying and being hired into a clinical role.
The first clinical rung is veterinary assistant — BLS's typical entry education there is also a high school diploma — and beyond that, a credentialed veterinary technician position, for which BLS lists an associate's degree as the typical entry education.
Kennel attendant to veterinary assistant in 12 months maps that move out month by month — what carries over, when training pays, and how the transition actually happens.
Browse open kennel attendant positions to see how the role is actually posted in your area, and on the hiring side, the kennel attendant job description template shows a complete example posting.