Animal Care Attendant

The Foster Hospital for Small Animals (FHSA) provides high-quality veterinary medical / surgical care to inpatient, outpatient, and critical / emergent small animal cases and superior customer service to clients. In addition, the hospital provides a positive learning experience for Tufts veterinary students, encompassing all specialties offered at the hospital. The FHSA also works closely with the adjoining Hospital for Large Animals (HLA) and Lerner Clinic, sharing many central services such as central stores, sanitation, and pharmacy.

This is a 1-year limited term position, with renewal depending on team needs, funding availability, and performance.

The Animal Care Attendant supports the FHSA's mission through the provision of generalist services that include animal handling and restraint, assistance with patient care, and provision of general housekeeping and infection control to ensure a clean and comfortable environment for all animals treated in the hospital's inpatient, outpatient and emergency services. When needed, the position will also support the HLA with animal handling and restraint services (and potentially animal handling and restraint at other clinic locations at the Grafton Campus). The position will interact regularly with students so the ability to be flexible is key to the position.

Essential Functions as an Animal Care Attendant will be:

Patient Care - Provide high quality patient care to include the following:

• Assist technicians and students in completing patient treatments while demonstrating proper animal handling and humane restraint techniques, basic and species-specific husbandry techniques, and proper daily care of medical equipment.
  
• Provide patients with food and water as directed by clinicians.
  
• Clean and maintain cages and clinical spaces.
  
• Clean and stock patient care areas and food room.
  
• Clean and maintain outdoor walk areas. 80%
  

Patient Transport - Responsibilities include:

• Assist with patient visits.
  
• Assist with patient drop offs and discharges.
  
• Transport patients between services within the hospital. 10%
  
• Other - Other duties as assigned by the supervisor.

In addition to the regular duties of the Animal Care Attendant, this position will specifically be assigned to provide physical assistance for veterinary students who have an approved accommodation related to physical limitations handling animals beyond a certain size. Such assistance may include working with both large and small animals on the Grafton campus, in locations outside of Foster Hospital for Small Animals, and may require flexibility in assigned work hours.

Basic Requirements:

• High School Diploma or the equivalent with up to one year of related experience.
• Knowledge of small animal behavior, restraint, feeding and basic sanitation.
• Ability to effectively work as a member of a team.
• Pride in maintaining assigned areas in a hospital environment.
• Basic computer skills, including the ability to learn the electronic medical record system.
• Ability to lift up to 50 lbs. with or without accommodation.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Vocational/technical training or an Associate's Degree, along with one or more years of related experience.
• Experience working with students in a post-secondary environment.
• Exotic animal handling experience (including birds, rabbits, ferrets, guinea pigs, rodents, reptiles, amphibians, and special small mammals such as chinchillas or hedgehogs).
• Large animal handling experience (for maximum position flexibility).