Job Check
Animal Caretakers
Feed, water, groom, bathe, exercise, or otherwise provide care to promote and maintain the well-being of pets and other animals that are not raised for consumption, such as dogs, cats, race horses, ornamental fish or birds, zoo animals, and mice. Work in settings such as kennels, animal shelters, zoos, circuses, and aquariums. May keep records of feedings, treatments, and animals received or discharged. May clean, disinfect, and repair cages, pens, or fish tanks.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Feed and water animals according to schedules and feeding instructions.Mostly human for now
- 02Provide treatment to sick or injured animals, or contact veterinarians to secure treatment.Mostly human for now
- 03Examine and observe animals to detect signs of illness, disease, or injury.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Mix food, liquid formulas, medications, or food supplements according to instructions, prescriptions, and knowledge of animal species.Mostly human for now
- 05Do facility laundry and clean, organize, maintain, and disinfect animal quarters, such as pens and stables, and equipment, such as saddles and bridles.Mostly human for now
- 06Exercise animals to maintain their physical and mental health.Mostly human for now
- 07Collect and record animal information, such as weight, size, physical condition, treatments received, medications given, and food intake.AI could speed this up a lot
- 08Respond to questions from patrons, and provide information about animals, such as behavior, habitat, breeding habits, or facility activities.AI could speed this up a lot
- 09Answer telephones and schedule appointments.AI could speed this up a lot
- 10Advise pet owners on how to care for their pets' health.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
27%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 79% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 69% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Feed and water animals according to schedules and feeding instructions.
- Provide treatment to sick or injured animals, or contact veterinarians to secure treatment.
- Mix food, liquid formulas, medications, or food supplements according to instructions, prescriptions, and knowledge of animal species.