Idea assistance

Ok everybody I'm at an interesting point in my life where I'm ready to start a career instead of just looking for another job. Ok, this may be a little long so that I can give as much detail as possible, so please bear with me. Ok, I am 23 years old with a massive love of animals, but very limited professional experience, and I want to deal with them on a more personal level than a vet does, something like rescue, rehabilitation, conservation, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, I also need to make decent money, seeing as my boyfriend and I just bought a house together and I refuse to be supported by anybody. As of right now, I am trying to get on with PAWS here in Columbus and going to school online at night for either Medical coding or transcription. I just really need any suggestions or ideas you guys might have! I have always loved animals, but for whatever reason was never professionally involved with the field, mostly because of outside influences. Thank you for any help you guys can provide. Oh, BTW, unfortunately moving is out of the question because of the whole new house thing, plus DB doesn't want to leave Columbus right now.

I could also use ideas as to what I can do as far as work at home professions go.

Hi Amandaofcols...first I have to tell you how much I admire that you are relatively young, have responsibility of owning a house and want to do what you love and are willing to pursue it .

My first thought if you want to work with pets is to maybe establish yourself as a dog walker, dog or cat sitter for vacationing owners, etc. Then maybe use funds from that to support yourself to study. Just a thought. You might want to volunteer at an ASPCA or something along those lines to get contacts and establish yourself as a respectable animal lover who wants to help others.

My two ideal career paths when I am done with this financial thing would be either cat errands (like taking them to vet or groomer while their owners are at work and can't do it) or to have an organic grocery (little bizarre, those ends of the spectrum LOL).

Good luck to you

Being a cat sitter or dog walker sounds ideal--you make your own hours, and can actually make some good money! I'm sure there's a market for that kind of thing in Columbus. Most petsitters are bonded and insured, and many states also have licensing requirements for petsitters. Maybe you could poke around and find some local petsitters that would be willing to talk to you about licensing requirements, insurance, all that stuff---maybe even one you could work for for awhile.

You could learn web & graphic design by either taking classes or learn by yourself, because it's not very hard. There are a lot of books, magazines, and websites also. Then you could do that from home, and you could specialize in animal-related websites if you wanted to. It's not very hands-on, but you could do it from home like you want to--or at least until you had money for school or to do whatever you wanted to do.

I have a book titled: 101 Careers for Animal Lovers, but most of them require schooling of some kind. It gives you the profession, what they do, and what kind of education you need. I can PM you some others if you're interested. There are several that many people probably don't think of.

Oh thank you all so much for your ideas.
Blue- I would love the ASPCA thing, but we don't have one here. We only have Animal Control, PAWS, and the Humane Society. But I will definitely check into the other things.
I never even thought of the Petsitter thing, I will have to do some digging to see if we have anything like that around here... Again thank you all soooo much for your help. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and now I finally have the opportunity to go after it!! )

How about dog walker or pet groomer? I wish I was in an animal field, too. I think it would be fun to be a vet, and very hands on, but it is a LOT of school!