A kennel attendant cares for dogs and other animals while their owners are away: feeding and exercising them, cleaning kennels and runs, and watching each animal for signs of illness.
BLS says animal care and service workers typically hold a high school diploma or equivalent and learn on the job, and that many employers prefer to hire people with animal experience.
This guide covers the daily work, the employers, what the job pays, and the career path.
What is a kennel attendant?
A kennel attendant is the person who looks after dogs and other animals while they board away from home.
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook lists kennel attendants as a type of animal care and service worker who care for pets, often overnight, in place of owners.
The job sits inside the occupation BLS calls animal caretakers, SOC 39-2021.
O*NET defines animal caretakers as the workers who feed, water, groom, bathe, exercise or otherwise care for pets and other non-food animals in settings such as kennels, animal shelters, zoos and aquariums, and who may keep records and clean and disinfect cages.
Employers post the same work under several names.
O*NET's sample of reported job titles for the occupation includes Kennel Attendant, Kennel Technician (Kennel Tech), Animal Care Giver, Dog Bather, Dog Groomer, Pet Stylist and Zookeeper.
On GroomerHires, searches for kennel technician, kennel assistant, pet care technician and boarding attendant all file under kennel attendant.
The title changes by employer; the work — feeding, cleaning, exercise and watchful care of boarding animals — does not.
Two neighboring jobs get confused with this one.
BLS describes animal shelter attendants as caring for animals' basic needs in shelters and rescue leagues, with possible admin duties such as record keeping and answering questions from the public.
Animal care inside veterinary clinics and hospitals is a separate occupation in BLS's system: veterinary assistants and laboratory animal caretakers.
What does a kennel attendant do day to day?
BLS lists the typical duties of animal care and service workers as giving food and water, cleaning equipment and living spaces, and monitoring and recording each animal's diet, condition and behavior.
The same list covers examining animals for illness or injury, exercising animals and — in some settings — bathing, nail trimming, clipping and training.
For kennel attendants specifically, the handbook's description is cleaning cages and dog runs and feeding, exercising and playing with animals.
Experienced attendants may also provide basic healthcare, bathe animals and attend to other basic grooming needs.
O*NET's highest-rated tasks for the occupation line up with that: feeding and watering animals according to schedules rates highest, followed by providing treatment for or contacting a veterinarian about a sick or injured animal, then observing animals for illness, disease or injury.
Housekeeping is a core task, not a side duty: O*NET lists facility laundry and the cleaning, organizing, maintaining and disinfecting of animal quarters among them.
- Feed and water every animal on its schedule
- Exercise and play with boarding dogs
- Clean and disinfect kennels, dog runs and animal quarters
- Do the facility laundry
- Watch appetite, energy, stool and movement, and log what you see
- Report anything off to the manager so the owner's veterinarian gets the call
Spot and refer
Where do they work?
Boarding is the core setting: boarding kennels, pet resorts and the pet hotels inside big-box stores, plus daycare-and-boarding chains and vet clinics that keep boarded animals.
BLS's 2025 employer breakdown for all animal caretakers — not kennel attendants alone — ran:
- Other personal services — 40% — the industry group that holds pet care services such as boarding and daycare, alongside unrelated personal services.
- Self-employed — 25%.
- Professional, scientific and technical services, which includes vet clinics — 10%.
- Retail trade — 9%.
- Arts, entertainment and recreation — 5%.
Several national names hire for this work.
PetSmart's pet hotel team are PetsHotel Specialists; the company describes the role as handling check-ins and check-outs, leading playtime, caring for pets and keeping the hotel clean.
One title trap at PetSmart: Pet Care Associate is the store job caring for live animals for sale — fish, reptiles, birds and small animals — not boarding dogs.
Dog care sits with the PetsHotel team.
Best Friends Pet Care, employee-owned through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan with 80+ locations nationwide, hires Animal Care Technicians alongside day camp counselors, groomers and dog trainers.
It is a pet care business — a different organization from Best Friends Animal Society, the nonprofit.
What do you need to get hired?
Formal requirements are light.
BLS says animal care and service workers typically have a high school diploma or equivalent and learn the occupation on the job, and that many employers prefer to hire people who have experience with animals.
O*NET rates the preparation the same way: the occupation sits in Job Zone 1 or 2 — very little to some preparation needed — with on-the-job training that runs from a few days to one year.
Employers train on the job.
PetSmart says its PetsHotel onboarding covers operations, dog behavior, safe handling and customer service.
The qualities BLS names for the occupation: compassion, customer-service skills, detail orientation, patience, physical stamina, problem-solving and reliability.
The physical side is real.
BLS describes much of the work as moving and cleaning cages, lifting bags of food and exercising animals, and calls for the stamina to kneel, crawl and lift heavy supplies.
Age matters for teen applicants.
Under federal child labor rules, the general minimum age for non-agricultural employment is 16, and the federal list of jobs permitted for 14- and 15-year-olds — office and clerical work, cashiering and selling, some clean-up work — names no animal care, kennel or daycare work.
So kennel work is generally a 16-and-up job under federal rules.
States can add their own rules for workers under 18 on top — your state labor office can tell you what applies where you are — and every employer sets its own hiring bar, so read the posting carefully if you are a minor.
Under 18? Check both levels of the rules
How much does a kennel attendant make?
BLS publishes no wage for kennel attendants alone.
Every figure in this section is for a labeled BLS series that contains the job — the core one being animal caretakers, SOC 39-2021, the BLS occupation that includes dog groomers, bathers, kennel and daycare attendants, pet sitters and dog walkers.
In the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, animal caretakers earned a median of $35,360 per year in May 2025.
The lowest 10% earned under $27,250 and the highest 10% earned over $50,060.
The BLS OEWS May 2025 survey — which counts wage-and-salary jobs and excludes the self-employed — put the median at $17.00 an hour ($35,360 a year), with a 10th percentile of $13.10 and a 90th percentile of $24.07.
OEWS counted 266,910 animal caretaker wage-and-salary jobs.
By industry, the May 2025 medians for animal caretakers were $16.92 an hour in Other Personal Services — the NAICS 812900 group that holds pet care services such as boarding and daycare alongside unrelated services — and $15.46 an hour in veterinary services (NAICS 541940).
One other figure you may run into: the handbook's headline for animal care and service workers as a combined group — caretakers plus trainers — is $35,530 per year, or $17.08 an hour.
The $35,360 caretaker-only median is the number that fits kennel work.
The tables behind these figures sit on our kennel attendant pay page.
What is the career path?
Three directions lead out of a kennel attendant job: up within boarding, across into grooming, and toward veterinary work.
Up within boarding, PetSmart makes the ladder explicit: its pet hotel path runs PetsHotel Specialist to PetsHotel Lead, who holds store keys, to PetsHotel Leader, who supervises and trains the hotel associates.
PetSmart's careers site tells one associate's story — day camper to Overnight Pet Care associate to Senior Lead to Assistant Hotel Leader — a single example of the ladder in motion, with titles that vary by store.
For running the facility, BLS has no pet-resort-manager code.
The closest BLS occupation is first-line supervisors of personal service workers — a stand-in, not the manager's own pay — at a median of $21.98 an hour ($45,720 a year) in Other Personal Services, May 2025.
Toward veterinary work, the next rung is veterinary assistant.
BLS describes that occupation as high-school entry with short-term on-the-job training, notes that certification is not mandatory, and puts the 2025 median at $38,150 a year.
A step beyond is veterinary technology — an associate-degree occupation with a 2025 median of $47,380.
Across into grooming: bather and grooming assistant jobs are the entry rungs of the groomer path.
Pros and cons of the job
The case for the job is a short runway into paid animal work and projected growth in the field.
The case against is physical work, noise, and schedules that bend around the animals.
Both sides, with the numbers:
- Entry is light. A high school diploma or equivalent is typical, no related work experience is needed, and training happens on the job.
- Growth is projected. BLS projects 12% growth for animal caretakers from 2025 to 2035 — 365,300 to 409,400 jobs, an Employment Projections count that includes the self-employed — against 3% for all occupations.
- Replacement demand is steady. BLS projects about 69,400 openings a year for animal care and service workers (caretakers plus trainers) over 2025–2035, on average — most from replacing workers who leave the occupation.
- The shift is spent with animals. Feeding, exercising, cleaning and observing animals are the substance of the job.
- The work is physical. Moving and cleaning cages, lifting bags of food, and the stamina to kneel, crawl and lift heavy supplies.
- Noise and standing come with the room. In O*NET's work-context survey, 78% of animal caretakers said they are exposed to distracting or uncomfortable noise every day, and 56% said they stand continually or almost continually.
- Weather is part of it too. 56% of animal caretakers reported working outdoors, exposed to all weather, every day.
- Schedules bend around the animals. BLS notes part-time work is common, shifts can include evenings, weekends and holidays, and 24-hour facilities such as kennels may need round-the-clock care.
- The emotional load is real. BLS warns the work can be distressing: shelter workers may see abused, injured or sick animals, and some caretakers help veterinarians euthanize animals.
- Pay is modest. The occupation medians in the pay section above are the honest benchmark.
Where to find kennel attendant jobs
Start where boarding happens: boarding kennels and pet resorts, daycare-and-boarding chains, pet stores with a hotel wing, shelters and rescues, and vet clinics that board animals.
Search every title variant, because employers do not agree on one.
Kennel attendant, kennel technician, kennel assistant, pet care technician and boarding attendant all file under this role on GroomerHires; O*NET's reported-title list includes both Kennel Attendant and Kennel Technician (Kennel Tech), alongside grooming titles such as Dog Bather and Dog Groomer.
Franchise brands add one wrinkle: the local owner is the employer.
Camp Bow Wow's national careers page uses the title Certified Camp Counselor® and sends applicants to each Camp location's own site.
A Camp location page tells applicants they are applying to a franchisee — not Camp Bow Wow Franchising — which sets its own wage and benefit programs.
When you apply, be specific about availability.
Kennels run early opens, late closes, weekends, holidays and overnight coverage, so saying clearly which of those you can work is the fastest way to look hireable.
Open kennel attendant jobs are listed on the job board.
Career information, not legal or tax advice. Hiring requirements are each employer's own, and child labor and wage rules come from federal and state law — confirm the details with DOL's Wage and Hour Division, your state labor office and the employer before you rely on anything here.