SASKATOON — It’s been 10 years since Sandy Hass graduated from the animal health technology program at Olds College in Alberta.
Next month, when Hass meets her classmates at the reunion, she’ll be one of a handful still involved in the profession.
More than 70 percent of animal health technologists leave their jobs after three years.
The love of animals doesn’t pay the bills.
Unless graduates land one of the rare higher-paying government jobs, chances are they’ll be underpaid, said Hass.
The average starting salary for a technologist working in a vet clinic is $6 to $7 an hour.
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The highest they can expect to earn is $1,400 a month, netting $1,000 a month after taxes.
As president of the Canadian Association of Animal Health Technicians and Technologists, Hass’s top priority is increasing the recognition of AHT’s and improving their salaries.
Today, she works full time as a school secretary. It allows her more regular hours to spend with her family.
But she continues to work one weekend each month at a feedlot and two weekends a month for a pet food company.
Previously, she spent seven years working full time in a feedlot outside Saskatoon. Because of her training, Hass feels she saved the feedlot thousands of dollars through quick diagnosis, knowledge of drugs and reducing death loss.
Cindy German works as a veterinary assistant at a clinic in Preeceville, Sask.
She graduated from the animal health program at Fairview College in Alberta nine years ago, and said she feels few people understand her role in an animal’s diagnosis and recovery.
Work assists diagnosis
After a vet has assessed a problem, German can spend a morning analyzing blood work, taking X-rays, collecting samples or even cleaning up vomit. The vet can make a diagnosis based on her work.
Yet when owners pick up their animals, German said they usually walk right past her, without offering any recognition for her work.
“Can you imagine walking into a doctor’s office and not realizing what the nurse is there for?”
Through a series of promotions and a declaration of Animal Health Technologist Week, the seven provincial associations, and the national association, are trying to raise awareness about the importance of the technologist’s job.
They’re hoping with an increased understanding of the profession, pet owners and farmers will soon demand that veterinary assistants be trained animal health technologists — resulting in a salary increase.
Most graduates of the 18 recognized veterinary assistant colleges in Canada are women.
The course is a two-year program with students studying everything from microbiology, pharmacology, anatomy and nutrition to livestock handling.
Until the day of recognition comes, German said technologists will have to draw their rewards from their profession, not their finances.
“In our clinic, they do approach cases like a team, but the finances sure aren’t approached like a team.”
