I will say that things are very different in rural areas and small towns than they are in the "big city." I don't know Ocala in particular, but in the small towns I do know (population <50K), you can't make a living in the fitness industry. The only people who don't have to work outside of a fitness environment have day jobs in allied health, like cardiac rehab or physical therapy. Everyone else is people like me, with a quick and dirty certification from ACE or AFAA, who work three to ten hours a week and definitely wouldn't have the skills to work anywhere that competition for instructors is strong.

In the more urban gyms I've visited, the full-time instructor/trainers are really, really good (often they get tapped as presenters at fitness education conferences). I'm really not sure how much of that is natural aptitude and how much is training.

In either case, I think you'd be looking at at least four years of learning, maybe more - whether a formal degree in exercise physiology, physical therapy or something else; or a good certification like ACSM's, plus time on the job to learn the ropes and refine your teaching strategies.

In the other direction, veterinary massage does sound like a good option. Human massage therapists seem to be doing pretty well these days, too. As for veterinary acupuncture, it's been a while since I looked at anything about that, but when I had dogs, there was no actual certification in veterinary acupuncture. Vets were taking human principles and techniques and applying them to animals. Which I have trouble believing that animals' meridians are located in the same places as humans', or that the balance among their organs would be the same, but I don't really know much about it.