Become a Veterinary Assistant III: Practical Skills

Learn the practical skills you need to become a successful veterinary assistant. This course provides detailed videos and cutting-edge graphics to demonstrate procedures and techniques you'll use on the job.

6 Weeks / 24 Course Hrs

Starting May 14, 2025

Offered in partnership with your preferred school

Cerritos College

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Learning method

Self-Guided

$135

No instructor. Study on your own schedule

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Instructor-Moderated

$135

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Starting May 14 | June 11

Details + Objectives

Course code: psk

Learn the practical skills you'll need to be a valuable veterinary assistant or educated pet owner. This course is the third installment in the "Become a Veterinary Assistant" series.

Throughout the course, you'll benefit from videos that demonstrate many procedures and techniques, as well as state-of-the-art interactive graphics. It's as close as you can get to actually being right there in the veterinarian's office!

What you will learn

Explore all the many duties that a veterinary assistant typically performs
Learn how to safely restrain an animal for blood tests, urine collection, and injections
Find out how to obtain blood samples
Learn how to catheterize a bladder
Review the basics of blood and urine interpretation
Gain a thorough understanding of examination room procedures

How you will benefit

Learn the practical skills you'll need to be a valuable veterinary assistant
Gain confidence in your ability to perform the daily tasks of a veterinary assistant
Open the door to new opportunities as a veterinary assistant

How the course is taught

Instructor-Moderated or Self-Guided online course
6 Weeks or 3 Months access
24 course hours

Outline

You'll begin this course by learning about one of the basic duties of veterinary assistants—how to safely and securely hold animals. Proper restraint techniques are the keys to ensuring that you and the person performing a procedure are safe. In addition to learning those techniques, you'll find out how to assess a patient's body language, how to remove a dog from a cage, and how to use different equipment to control a patient.

You focused on dogs in the last lesson. In this lesson, you'll change the focus to cats. Their body language cues differ from a dog's, so how you handle them will change, too. You'll learn the "stretch," the "scruff," and the "kitty burrito" restraint techniques. Then, you'll examine how to restrain rabbits, birds, and other exotics.

Now it's time to learn how to put your new restraint skills to work. Nearly every day, a veterinary assistant will be asked to help restrain an animal for any number of reasons: blood collection, injections, and routine examinations to name a few. Other times, you'll have to conduct a physical exam, give medication, or trim nails. This lesson will provide you with videos as well as detailed, step-by-step instructions to help prepare you for these duties.

A blood test is a vital way for veterinarians to determine what's wrong with a patient. So taking blood samples and having a working knowledge of an animal's circulatory system is key for a veterinary assistant. After a review of the circulatory system, you'll look at the most common sites for taking blood—jugular, cephalic, and saphenous veins. Then, you'll take a look at the equipment you'll be using (needles, syringes, and blood collection tubes).

Now that you have a blood sample, what can you do with it? In this lesson, you'll learn about the tests you might help to perform and explore how veterinarians diagnose diseases. Though there are thousands of diseases, a few important ones are anemia, diabetes, kidney disease, and liver failure. You'll quickly learn the difference between white blood cells and chemistries and how to do a PCV and blood smear.

All fluids tell a story. In this lesson, you'll look at urine and how to take samples. You could just put a bowl under a dog, of course, but there other methods that will help ensure that the sample remains uncontaminated. You'll also look at the tests that you might help to perform on urine, and go over what duties you'll be responsible for.

In this lesson, you'll move into the surgical suite. Although the veterinarian will do the surgery itself, she won't be able to do it alone. You may be asked to clip and scrub a patient for surgery. Other responsibilities could include preparing surgical packs, knowing the names of the surgical instruments, and cleaning and sterilizing those instruments properly. You'll also have a front row seat to a life-saving surgery that was performed on a little dog.

While it's not the most glamorous of tasks, keeping anal sacs clear and anal glands healthy is a big part of basic health care for companion animals. You'll learn how to identify an impacted sac and two techniques you can use to remedy this condition. You'll also examine how to clean ears, administer medication, and provide a bath—all common responsibilities that you may be assigned as a veterinary assistant.

Suppose someone brings you a little kitten and wants to know if it's a boy or a girl. Can you do it? In this lesson, you'll look at how to identify the gender of kittens, puppies, and bunnies, as well as how to tell their age. Knowing the age of a patient is important when figuring out how much medication to give, so there's also a segment on how to calculate doses of medication to help you figure out what and how much to give your patient.

Now you'll move into the exam room. Yes, assistants have to know how to set up the room, but they can also play an important role in preparing the patients before the veterinarian sees them. In this lesson you'll learn about TPR—temperature, pulse, and respiration. You'll also discuss how to take a patient history, what to look for while performing the TPR, and how to identify dehydration.

Do you know metatarsals from metacarpals? How about ventral from dorsal? In this lesson, you'll get a crash course in medical terminology and how to use it when taking radiographs. You'll also learn how to read x-rays and why bones look white and lungs look dark. You'll discover how to train a dog so you can take a hip x-ray without sedation.

In this last lesson, you'll take a closer look at how to give injections (including vaccines) and how to diagnose one of the most common ailments that afflicts cats and dogs: worms. You'll study collection techniques, proper equipment, what to look for in a sample, and how to identify different types of worms. Finally, the lesson wraps up with some memorable veterinary cases. Maybe they'll inspire you to become a veterinarian yourself!

Instructors & Support

Tracy Heyland, RVT

Tracy Heyland is a Registered Veterinary Technologist (RVT), earning the Academic and Practical Proficiency Award upon graduating. She brings 25+ years of experience in small animal medicine to her teaching, earned the Provincial Instructor Diploma, certified as a Professional Co-Active Coach, and is Fear Free Certified. Tracy has worked in general practice, emergency medicine, veterinary sales, operations management, and teaching positions and runs her own coaching and training company for veterinary teams, leaders, and managers.

Giving back to the veterinary profession is a passion of Tracy's where she volunteers for a veterinary technologist program advisory committee, remotely located spay and neuter projects, and a veterinary technologist association continuing education committee.

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Requirements

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course. However, completion of Become a Veterinary Assistant and Become a Veterinary Assistant II: Canine Reproduction is recommended.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

PC: Windows 8 or later.
Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

FAQ

Instructor-Moderated: A new session of each course begins each month. Please refer to the session start dates for scheduling.

Self-Guided: Your course begins immediately after you enroll.

Instructor-Moderated: Once a course session starts, two lessons will be released each week for the 6 week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends. You will interact with the instructor through the online discussion area. There are no live sessions or online meetings with the instructor.

Self-Guided: You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

Instructor-Moderated: The interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes two weeks after each lesson is released, so you're encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. However, you will have access to all lessons from the time they are released until the course ends.

Self-Guided: There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Instructor-Moderated: Students enrolled in a six-week online class benefit from a one-time, 10-day extension for each course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.

Self-Guided: Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

Reviews

I especially like that you had photographs along with the content. The video clips were very helpful as a learning aid. The course was well organized and written in a style that was easy to understand. The course content was excellent. It was a convenient, interesting, and fun course. The case histories and examples from your practice gave an insight into a vet’s world. Thanks for a great experience.

This course offered much more information than I expected. This is a great course for pet owners, breeders and for anybody who is working with animals. All the questions on the discussion board were answered quickly and professionally. Thank you Dr. Jeff!

The course definitely covered many topics. I liked how the instructor explained everything very clearly. Sometimes textbook explanations are very confusing. The pictures were great, to better explain certain topics. I really gained a lot from this course. Dr. Grognet is a very good instructor. I look forward to taking another course of his soon. I like his style of teaching.

This is the third class I have taken with Dr. Jeff and I have been extremely pleased with all three. I plan to go on to be a vet tech and I feel they have been a great asset in helping to prepare me for my career. He makes the material interesting and the lessons enjoyable. I would definitely recommend his classes to others.

Excellent course! The course material was very organized and contained so much good information! Dr. Jeff also made it fun to learn with picture matches, crossword puzzles, and short video clips. I took the course as a pet owner (rather than a vet assistant employee) and found the information invaluable. Dr. Jeff is an excellent instructor and I would definitely another one of his classes.

This course has been a very helpful tool for gaining knowledge and learning important and valuable information. For the pet owner who wants to know more about their little or big four legged family member, or someone who is pursuing a career in the veterinary field, this course has it covered. I feel much more confident about being a knowledgeable and responsible pet owner. I'm also on my way to realizing my goal of one day working as an assistant. Thank you!

This was a fantastic course. I really enjoy the style of the instructor, Dr. Grognet. He has a great way of teaching, with a good balance of intensity and humor to lighten the depth of the topics. The content of the lessons was informative, well-paced, and the activities were fun to complete at the end of each chapter. My questions were answered almost immediately and thoroughly through the discussion group postings. I found the explanations to my questions helpful in my learnings as I continued to work through the course. Overall, I found this course and others I have taken with Dr. Grognet to be really interesting and helpful in my pursuit of a second career working with animals in a veterinary hospital setting. I recommend that others take these courses if they are interested, involved pet guardians or if they are pursuing a career in animal health. Thank you.

Jeff and his teaching assistant were wonderful, warm, personable, and responsive. Even though this course was online and provided no actual personal interaction, I always felt that they were there for me for support and when I had questions. I very much enjoyed this course. I love Jeff's assignments - the crossword puzzles and other interactive activities.

Dr. Grognet was clear, precise and whitty at the same time. It gave me an opportunity to learn in a way that was comfortable yet informative. I have learned so much from these classes that I am now confident about my working with animals! Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity!

I wish to thank you for the courses, as I have landed a paid, although seasonal, "Animal Caretaker" position at a local science museum where baby reindeer, baby camels, and baby yaks are now on site for the holidays. I have printed out all the course material, in addition to much of the supplemental material for my reference. I enjoyed the courses and they are already put into practice!

Become a Veterinary Assistant III: Practical Skills

Cerritos College