What does an animal care supervisor do?
An animal care supervisor's responsibilities include supervising the overall animal facility, ensuring that the animals are properly taken care of by the personnel. The animal care supervisors' duties include administering feeding programs to maintain animals' well-being, examining the operation of mechanical equipment and necessary tools, monitoring animals' health conditions, providing medication by veterinarian's advice, and coordinating with animal experts for recommendations. An animal care supervisor must adhere to and enforce the highest safety standards and regulatory procedures within the animal care facility.
Animal care supervisor responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real animal care supervisor resumes:
- Manage and implement merchandising strategy for POS marketing and display inventory.
- Demonstrate ability to troubleshoot creatively, solve problems effectively, and make inform decisions while successfully guiding others through constant change.
- Supervise and monitor associate activity for adherence to guidelines insuring maximum engagement, AHT efficiency, and sales productivity.
Animal care supervisor skills and personality traits
We calculated that 11% of Animal Care Supervisors are proficient in Direct Supervision, Sops, and Patient Care. They’re also known for soft skills such as Emotional stability, Communication skills, and Organizational skills.
We break down the percentage of Animal Care Supervisors that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Direct Supervision, 11%
Job entailed direct supervision of employees: assigning daily operations, processing, troubleshooting quality problems and completing required documentation.
- Sops, 10%
Established and implemented protocols and SOPs for animal care, proper sanitization for disease control, and facility and equipment management.
- Patient Care, 10%
Perform complex and varied tasks associated with the direct support of staff in patient care and associated hospital services.
- Animal Handling, 7%
Maintained inventory and ordered all cleaning supplies and animal handling equipment.
- Animal Facility, 7%
Maintained detailed documentation for 17 animal facility rooms regarding temperature, humidity, and sterilization standard operating procedures.
- USDA, 6%
Prepare facilities for semi-annual IACUC and USDA inspections while implementing recommended improvements.
Most animal care supervisors use their skills in "direct supervision," "sops," and "patient care" to do their jobs. You can find more detail on essential animal care supervisor responsibilities here:
Emotional stability. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for an animal care supervisor to have is emotional stability. Their role and responsibilities require that "registered nurses need emotional resilience and the ability to cope with human suffering, emergencies, and other stressors." Animal care supervisors often use emotional stability in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "maintained patient stability medical terminology cpr certified provided high quality patient care. "
Communication skills. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling animal care supervisor duties is communication skills. The role rewards competence in this skill because "registered nurses must be able to communicate effectively with patients in order to understand their concerns and evaluate their health conditions." According to an animal care supervisor resume, here's how animal care supervisors can utilize communication skills in their job responsibilities: "develop and maintain an open line of communication with doctors, pharmacies, hospice and home health agencies and family members. "
Organizational skills. This is an important skill for animal care supervisors to perform their duties. For an example of how animal care supervisor responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "nurses often work with multiple patients who have a variety of health needs." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of an animal care supervisor: "utilize sound judgment in escalating organizational risks to hr and senior management. ".
Compassion. animal care supervisor responsibilities often require "compassion." The duties that rely on this skill are shown by the fact that "registered nurses should be caring and empathetic when working with patients." This resume example shows what animal care supervisors do with compassion on a typical day: "investigated and resolved customer inquiries and complaints with kindness and compassion. "
Detail oriented. Another crucial skill for an animal care supervisor to carry out their responsibilities is "detail oriented." A big part of what animal care supervisors relies on this skill, since "registered nurses must be precise because they must ensure that patients get the correct treatments and medicines at the right time." How this skill relates to animal care supervisor duties can be seen in an example from an animal care supervisor resume snippet: "conducted weekly team performance evaluations and provided detailed coachings to ensure understanding. "
Physical stamina. Another skill commonly found on animal care supervisor job descriptions is "physical stamina." It can come up quite often in animal care supervisor duties, since "nurses should be comfortable performing physical tasks, such as lifting patients." Here's an example from a resume of how this skill fits into day-to-day animal care supervisor responsibilities: "provide support to patients with physical disabilities such as amputations and obesity. "
The three companies that hire the most animal care supervisors are:
- Help Inc5 animal care supervisors jobs
- Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings3 animal care supervisors jobs
- VCA Animal Hospitals2 animal care supervisors jobs
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Animal care supervisor vs. Breeder complex manager
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between animal care supervisors and breeder complex manager. For instance, animal care supervisor responsibilities require skills such as "direct supervision," "sops," "patient care," and "animal handling." Whereas a breeder complex manager is skilled in "inventory control," "quality customer service," "community resources," and "medicaid." This is part of what separates the two careers.
The education levels that breeder complex managers earn slightly differ from animal care supervisors. In particular, breeder complex managers are 0.8% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than an animal care supervisor. Additionally, they're 2.0% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Animal care supervisor vs. Parlor manager
In addition to the difference in salary, there are some other key differences worth noting. For example, animal care supervisor responsibilities are more likely to require skills like "direct supervision," "sops," "patient care," and "animal handling." Meanwhile, a parlor manager has duties that require skills in areas such as "milking," "customer service," "scheduling appointments," and "performance feedback." These differences highlight just how different the day-to-day in each role looks.
Parlor managers earn similar levels of education than animal care supervisors in general. They're 2.6% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 2.0% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Animal care supervisor vs. Kennel manager
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, animal care supervisors are more likely to have skills like "direct supervision," "sops," "animal handling," and "animal facility." But a kennel manager is more likely to have skills like "customer service," "front desk," "scheduling appointments," and "administer medications."
Kennel managers typically earn lower educational levels compared to animal care supervisors. Specifically, they're 5.4% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.3% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Animal care supervisor vs. Game preserve manager
Types of animal care supervisor
Updated January 8, 2025











