I dont have a clue about hunters, but...

[Maniac2]

...this was really funny...
Was doing HoR hc on my mage and we had hunter in a party. While we were fighting waves of trash, hunter`s pet was in the corner, put on stay and on passive. Asked him why he is not using pet in fight, he literally said "i dont want him to die". When all others start to ask him what is the use of his pet then he said "for AP buff".
I dont know what buff his pet(wolf) gives, but his answer was really funny....

And his gear was fine, properly enchanted and gemmed, so dunno really was he trolling or not

[Zurth]

it does give the AP buff, even in raids I see hunters with their pet by their side. I guess its personal preference, but I have never had issues with my pet dying

[romek]

If you don't know the encounter its better to hold pet back, like on Firefighter for example, but your dps will go down for sure then. Few simple clicks will make your life hell of a lot easier

[Kuldrad]

I'm assuming the pet was a wolf, and the wolf special ability is Furious Howl, which is indeed a DPS boost for the hunter when it goes off. Dead wolf, no Furious Howl.

As for keeping it in the corner to keep it from getting killed, it's not something I'd ever do. If I found my pet getting killed early and consistantly in a particular fight, I'd really be looking on ways to improve it's survivability, and not sit it in the corner. I've only done HoR on heroic three times so far, and I've yet to have my pet die even once in there. So I'm not really sure what the issue was for that particular hunter.

So yes, this hunter does have a clue about what they were doing, it's just not how I'd go about it personally.

That being said, I've also never done Firefighter, so it may just be a viable strat for that fight.

[bullseyed]

Mim/Firefighter in general was retarded for pets. It isn't that much better now even after the avoidance change.

I wouldn't put my pet aside on a heroic or a raid, I would tell the healer to do his damn job and heal the pet. Many times in PUG heroics with the new LFG tool my pet is outdpsing a ret paladin or a dk anyway.

[Grundigle]

If you have a rubish tank your pet can get rammed by the mage quite quickly and quite easily in HoR Heroic

[Daginni]

A good hunter always has his pet fighting when he's fighting. I could POSSIBLY understand trying to keep it alive while leveling, but not so much.

P.S. Zurth, you're knock off of my gets 5/10 ;D