Job Description
Position Overview
The Shelter Associate provides humane care, and be an advocate for, the animals in our facility. This includes intake of stray dogs and cats and owner-surrendered animals, daily care of housed pets including cleaning, feeding, and enrichment, and to provide care and treatment, to promote the health, safety, and welfare of people and pets in Maricopa County.
NOTE: MCACC may use your email address listed on your electronic application as a primary means of contacting candidates.
This recruitment will be used to fill both Unclassified Part-time and Full-time positions.
Positions currently available in the East Valley located at:
2630 W Rio Salado Pkwy, Mesa, AZ 85201
Position Qualifications
Minimum education and/or experience:
High school diploma or GED and six (6) months working or volunteer experience with domestic animals in a veterinary hospital, animal control, humane society, or other animal facility. Completion of a Veterinary Certification and/or a minimum of 15 semester hours of post-secondary education in Animal Health, Animal Science, Zoology or related animal sciences may substitute for the experience requirement.
NOTE: Any applicable volunteer or work experience should be listed under the work experience section of the application to include hours worked and job duties, information listed on the resume or other section of the application will not be considered.
Specialized training, certifications, and/or other special requirements:
Must currently possess or have the ability to obtain a valid Arizona driver's license by the time of hire in good standing with no DUI convictions within the past 5 years.
Knowledge, skills, and abilities
Knowledge of:
- Or the ability to learn understand and apply rules and regulations governing impounding, releasing, quarantine, and euthanasia of animals.
Skill in:
- Verbally communicating with others to convey information effectively.
- Care, feed and safely and humanely handle domestic animals.
- Make breed and sex identification.
- Understand and follow written and verbal instructions.
- Provide counseling to potential adopters to assist them in selecting animals.
- Communicate effectively with a variety of individuals representing diverse cultures and backgrounds and function calmly in situations that require a high degree of sensitivity, tact, and diplomacy.
- Perform euthanasia and epidemiology.
- Assist in treating injured and/or sick animals.
- Maintain reports, records, logs, and files; to enter data into a computer system.
- Operate a County vehicle to transport animals to other locations.
- Treat County employees, representatives of outside agencies and members of the public with courtesy and respect.
- Abide by OSHA regulations and requirements.
Preferred education and/or experience:
Additional experience working in Animal Care with domestic animals in a veterinary hospital, animal control, humane society, or other animal facility. Post-secondary education in Animal Health, Animal Science, Zoology or related animal sciences.
Preferred training, certifications and/or other special requirements:
Advanced speaking bilingual skills.
Working conditions:
Work is performed in a high volume animal shelter. The ability to work 7 days of the week including holidays, if needed as late as 9pm. The ability to sit, stand, walk, drive a vehicle, speak, hear, see, read, distinguish colors, bend, kneel, reach, twist, crawl, crouch, and balance. Environmental factors can be indoors or outdoors and range from below 40 to over 90 degrees, dusty, smoky, wet areas or confined areas, using chemicals (fumes), high noise level, dim or bright lighting. Lifting floor to waist fifty (50) pounds, lifting waist to shoulder of thirty-five (35) pounds, lifting shoulder to overhead of thirty-five (35) pounds, carrying a weight of fifty (50) pounds for a distance of twenty (20) feet, and pushing/pulling a weight of fifty (50) pounds a distance of fifty (50) feet.
- Receives animals into shelter, checks impounded animals for microchip identification or tags, attempts to notify owners, and safely houses animals in cages.
- Identifies and isolates dangerous and/or ill animals.
- Takes photos of animals upon intake and uploads those photos into the computer system.
- Identifies breed and gender of animals received.
- Documents all information accompanying pets that are received into the shelter.
- Assists in selecting appropriate animals for adoption and accurately relays any information known about the animal to the adopter.
- Performs adopter-to-animal and animal-to-animal interactions.
- Cleans and disinfects animal enclosures, cages, equipment, walkways, vehicles, and work areas.
- Feeds and cares for dogs, cats, and other species as needs arise.
- Handles and moves animals from one shelter area or facility to another.
- Performs humane euthanasia and disposal of animals according to department protocols.
- Performs epidemiology in accordance with department protocol. Makes minor repairs to shelter facilities.
- Releases impounded animals to owners.
- Answers inquiries about lost or found pets.
- Assists veterinarians with vaccinations.
- Performs animal behavior evaluations.
- Coordinates or participates in the transfer of animals to New Hope partners and/or foster homes as well as other humane agencies.
- Sells licenses to the public and updates records accordingly.
- Updates computer files when receiving, adopting, returning, transferring or euthanizing animals.
- Provides courteous, high quality service to members of the public by responding to requests for service or appropriate referral.
- Runs daily reports including but not limited to cash balancing, jurisdictions, kennel verification, kennel inventory, field and owner intakes, adoptions, due outs, fees by type, hold and notifies, missing animals and other auditing reports.
The hiring authority will select the successful candidate based on departmental needs.
All offers of employment made to new hires and rehires at Maricopa County are contingent upon successful completion of a post-offer, pre-employment thorough background investigation. A background investigation is conducted on a current employee who changes to a Safety Sensitive Position or one having the potential for serious adverse impact on the integrity or efficiency of the County. These requirements do not pertain to employees of elected officials who undergo background investigation processes administered through their respective offices.
Typically successful candidates are hired at a salary rate, up to midpoint of the range, based on applicable experience, internal equity and budgetary allowances.