Pet Pal was nice in D:OS 1, but in D:OS 2 it is much more inconvenient. You need to pick it on your main character, sacrificing any other specialization or else you can't get it until level 4. Once again, this is related to switching from 2 Talents at creation and 1 at level 3 to 1 at creation and 1 at level 4.
That discourages Rogues from starting with Pet Pal, and fighters from starting with Pet Pal. Mages are probably the best class to go for Pet Pal, but that's mostly because Mages best starting Talent is almost always Far Out Man, and while nice, is easily skippable.
Saying that one of the companions should start out with Pet Pal misses that you pick their class when they join, so that presumably changes their Talents as well. I can test that, but it wouldn't be smart design otherwise. So giving one of the Companions Pet Pal as a default Talent is not useful. Instead, it would be nice to be able to fix that with a full respec of your companions, so you could give one of them Pet Pal.
