When is Veterinary Assistant Week, and how should you recognise your assistants?

The U.S. observance is NAVTA's Approved Veterinary Assistant (AVA) Week, which NAVTA also calls National Approved Veterinary Assistant Week.

The 2026 week ran May 17–23, 2026 — it has passed.

Earlier editions held the same slot: May 19–25, 2024 and May 18–24, 2025.

NAVTA had not announced 2027 dates as of October 22, 2026.

Because the week is pinned to the third week of May, the 2027 dates are expected to be May 16–22, 2027 — treat that as a projection from the pattern, not an announcement, and confirm the dates on navta.net before you print schedules, order anything or promise the team a day.

One trap when you search: a UK and Europe vendor calendar publishes its own July "Veterinary Assistant Week."

That is a UK/EU observance, not NAVTA's U.S. week — if a July date shows up in your results, it does not apply to a U.S. practice.

The week is younger than you might guess.

NAVTA ran a Veterinary Assistant Day first, then in 2024 expanded it into a full week, establishing national Approved Veterinary Assistant Week during the third week of May each year.

The first full week ran May 19–25, 2024.

That origin explains the two things that trip practices up: the dates move (they follow the third week of May, not fixed calendar dates), and the official name centers the AVA designation rather than the job title.

When you search, use the official name — or skip the guessing and check NAVTA's news page before you plan each year.

NAVTA's 2026 theme was "The Veterinary Health Care Team is Not Complete Without Veterinary Assistants," and the hashtags it encouraged were #AVAWeek2026 and #EssentialAVAs.

If your clinic posts during the week, use the current year's theme and tags so your celebration joins the larger one instead of floating alone.

A week works when it's specific.

The ideas below cost scheduling more than money:

• Name the work out loud. A short huddle where each veterinarian and technician says one concrete thing an assistant did well this year. Specific beats generic.
• Give back a chore. Cover the kennel run, the laundry or the opening rounds for the week — with the schedule actually adjusted so someone is assigned to it, not just told it's appreciated.
• Feed people at a set time. A team lunch held when appointments allow, so nobody eats at their desk or skips it because the day ran over.
• Post the team, not the swag. Photos of your assistants doing the work, captioned with what each of them carries.
• Put it in writing. A short note per assistant that names what they handled this year — the things that would be hard to replace.

The case for doing this well is retention.

AAHA's Stay, Please study found 30% of surveyed veterinary professionals in clinical practice plan to leave their current job within the next year.

That figure is intent to leave, not a measured turnover rate — but 30% of a clinical team saying they plan to go is a planning problem regardless.

When AAHA asked the people planning to leave what would make them stay, fair compensation led (52.5%), followed by appreciation for work (29.0%), career development (25.6%), teamwork (24.2%) and caring leadership (24.1%).

Recognition is the second lever, not the first: a week of appreciation cannot do what the pay line does.

For scale on the pay side: on VeterinaryHires, employers hiring veterinary assistants posted a median of $19.00 an hour as of October 6, 2026, across 298 employers and 418 listings stating hourly pay, with the middle half offering $18.00 to $22.00 — and 85% of veterinary assistant listings stated pay (1,923 of 2,263).

The official series line up nearby.

BLS OEWS May 2025 puts the median for veterinary assistants inside veterinary practices at $37,930.

The national series for the occupation — SOC 31-9096, which also includes laboratory animal caretakers — puts it at $38,150 a year ($18.34 an hour), with the 10th percentile at $30,120 and the 90th at $49,150.

Against those numbers a lunch is cheap; against AAHA's list, fair compensation is still the first lever.

We cover the leaving side in depth in our guide to assistant turnover.

Assistants share the calendar with three other staff weeks, and planning them in one sitting saves you from discovering each one the day after it ends:

Two notes on the table.

First, for the technician week's themes, recognition ideas and celebration planning, see our National Veterinary Technician Week guide.

Second, name the manager week the way VHMA does: it is Practice Manager Recognition Week, and the November dates are VHMA's.

If you are reading this in the back half of 2026, the 2026 week (May 17–23) is months behind you.

Two moves, in that order: run the recognition anyway, and set the 2027 plan in motion.

Late and specific beats on-time and generic: a belated huddle that names actual work counts for more than a banner that went up in May while everyone was slammed.

Then put a spring reminder on the calendar to check NAVTA's announcement.

The 2027 dates are expected to be May 16–22, 2027, but that is projected from the pattern, not announced.

Checking ahead costs five minutes; celebrating the wrong week costs the credibility you were trying to build.

NAVTA started the observance and owns the dates — the same organization that runs National Veterinary Technician Week.

It built the week around its Approved Veterinary Assistant designation: completing a NAVTA-approved veterinary assistant program makes a person eligible to sit for the AVA exam, and passing earns the designation.

The AVA is a voluntary credential from NAVTA, not a state license.

NAVTA says more than 65 approved programs in the U.S. and Canada prepare students for the AVA, and more than 2,500 AVAs are practicing across North America (April 2026).

The designation is one path into the role, not a requirement for it — so recognize the role, not the credential.

An assistant with years of kennel-to-surgery-floor experience and no AVA is not a lower priority for your huddle.

If you want a refresher on what the role covers, our veterinary assistant career guide walks through it.

AAHA's study also asked the people planning to stay why they stay.

The most-selected reasons were teamwork (40.8%), practicing modern medicine (34.3%), meaningful work (32.2%), fair compensation (30.2%) and flexibility (27.6%) — the share of stayers who put each in their top three.

Recognition that connects to those reasons lands; recognition that doesn't is wallpaper.

Map the week onto the list and the ideas sharpen themselves:

• Appreciation (29.0% of leavers) — specific, named praise: in the huddle, in writing, and in front of clients when it's earned.
• Career development (25.6%) — fund a step: the AVA exam, continuing education, or a new skill with someone assigned to teach it.
• Caring leadership (24.1%) — the owner or lead technician says the thank-you personally, not in a group email.
• Teamwork (24.2%) — a whole-team meal or activity, so the week builds the team instead of spotlighting one person.
• Flexibility (27.6% among stayers) — grant the shift swap or schedule request they always ask for, without a negotiation.

Named praise, adjusted schedules and a written note cost nothing.

When you do spend, consider one durable item instead of a pile of swag: the AVA exam fee is $100 per student, and sponsoring it — or the continuing education that keeps the designation, since renewal runs every two years with at least 10 hours of veterinary CE — is recognition that outlasts the week.

Before you buy, know how each gift type is treated.

These are federal rules from IRS Publication 15-B (2026) — worth a minute with your payroll provider before you spend:

• Gift cards are wages. Cash and cash-equivalent benefits — gift cards and gift certificates — are never excludable as de minimis benefits, no matter how small. If you give them, run them through payroll.
• Low-value non-cash gifts can qualify as de minimis. Publication 15-B lists holiday or birthday gifts other than cash with a low fair market value, and flowers, fruit or similar items for special circumstances such as outstanding performance. The IRS sets no dollar figure for "low" — it turns on fair market value and how often you give.
• Parties are their own category. Occasional parties or picnics for employees and their guests are a listed de minimis example — your team lunch gets friendlier treatment than the gift card.
• Achievement awards carry real conditions. They can be excluded only for length of service or safety achievement, and only as tangible personal property — not cash, gift cards, vacations, meals, lodging or event tickets. The excludable amount is capped at $1,600 per employee per year for qualified plan awards and $400 for awards that are not, and the award needs a meaningful presentation under circumstances that don't look like disguised pay.

One week in May is a fixture, not a program.

The recognition that shows up in AAHA's data — appreciation, development, leadership, flexibility — is a habit with a schedule, and the cheapest version is to keep doing the specific version of it after the hashtags fade.

Two concrete bridges from the week to the year.

NAVTA introduced an AVA membership tier in 2026 designed to support assistants through professional development, continuing education opportunities, recognition and community — sponsoring one is a gift that keeps working after the week ends.

Separately, the designation must be renewed every two years with at least 10 hours of veterinary CE, so funding those hours is another lasting option.

And for the schedule half: a 2020 survey of veterinary technicians — technician data, not assistant data — found schedule control was the most significant predictor of lower emotional exhaustion, and the authors recommend giving technicians more control over schedules, recognition and professional development.

Flexibility also appeared on AAHA's stayer list, so treating the schedule as recognition answers both signals at once.

For recognition built across the whole team — including October's technician week — our guide to staff recognition and Vet Tech Week covers the program side.

And to hear what would keep your assistants before they're already leaving, stay interviews are the structured way to ask.