Pets you didn't like...

[Zaranock]

...but now do!

I'm not a fan of stags at all, I think they run jilty and the old models leave something to be desired. However, when questing through Hyjal to open up Ban'thalos, I was talking to one of my friends on BTAG about all the deer that were around. He said, and I quote 'Tame one and name it Rudolph!'
So I did, planning to release him later. But I didn't. He stuck around....and he's still around.
I still don't really like him, but I can't get rid of him. Here he is.

Rudolph is a strange guy. He runs with all the grace of a mentally challenged goat, and has eyes derpier than Slapperfish's Jormungar. He's rather small, after taming, and his legs are spindly. He's also a depressingly drab brown color with a stark-white butt.
He is also a vicious murderer whose face is red for different reasons.

Anyone else have pets that they really didn't like or didn't want for some reason but now either like them or have compromised with them in some fashion?

[Kalhoun]

That would probably be my red spirit porcupine. When the three challenge tame spirit beasts came out in MoP, I was really "meh" about them. I've never been a fan of the ghostly, transparent models, and the fact that they were porcupines (though nothing against porcupines, I love them in RL) didn't excite me (I was hoping for a dinosaur or anything non-mammalian). Plus, I think I was just un-enthused with the game in general at the time, so that probably didn't help.

Right before Warlords dropped, I restarted my subscription and filled the time hunting rares and running old content. One day, on a whim, I decided to try the red spirit porcupine tame, just to see if I could do it. My gear was crappy (just greens and blues), and I was sure I would fail. And I did... several times. I think it took about four tries before I got him. I called him "Murderface" because of the number of times he killed me, and then stuffed him away in my stables as a trophy tame.

Then WoD came out, and I found I wanted to use a spirit beast. I've never really connected with one before, and typically will use a non-exotic if I want a Mastery buff. But the Spirit Mend ability was too tempting to pass up, and so I pulled Murderface out of the stable. I have other spirit beasts tamed, but it was only because his red coloration would match my character's look that I chose him (Kalhoun seems to like red pets ).

I think it only took one dungeon run before we clicked. I am in love with this silly pet now. The sounds he makes are adorable, and his coloration and spikes mimic Kalhoun's hair. Plus, when viewed from the front, he reminds me of the "Hunter's Mark" spell effect - he kind of looks like that arrow graphic that would appear above people's heads.

I went through several names before I settled on renaming him "Pyewacket." He's now one of the two most used pets I run with (the first being my brown WoD wolf).

[Rhyela]

I have a couple right now. The first one is Beauty, my hydra (Chimaeron). The main reason I really didn't like her at first is because of her pet family. I still find hydras a bit obnoxious with all the sounds they make. In fact, I don't even know why I wanted to tame her in the first place; she's quite atrocious to look at, and I knew I'd have to put up with the aforementioned groans/hisses. However, once I tamed her, I instantly felt sorry for her, and felt like it was up to me to give her a second chance at life with a loving master. To help her not feel quite so hideous, I named her Beauty. So now, even though she's noisy and ugly, I'm quite fond of her.




The next is my bat, Lannister. I love bats IRL, but I've never been able to bond with one in-game. And even though the new models look great, nothing really pulled me to try one out. That all changed when I was wandering around in Frostfire Ridge and saw this huge white bat flying around. I figured, "Why not?" and so I tamed him. As soon as he flapped to my side, I almost abandoned him right then and there because I think he's so ugly. That blonde hair just weirds me out for some reason. I think it strikes me as far too human-like, or something. But despite all that, I convinced myself to give him a shot, and now I can't get rid of him. In fact, he's become one of my favorite pets of this expansion. ^.^