So...I swear I haven't totally forgotten about this. >_>
My challenge this time was:

. This is the spirit beast, Karoma, not to be confused with the ghost wolf from BC that was briefly tamable.
You can see Xella's report about the Grimtotem Spirit Guide
here.
And with that said, let's begin:

Like many people, I was beyond ecstatic when Blizzard re-implemented the ghost wolf skin as a tamable pet, and her being a spirit beast didn't bother me in the least. My wolf has earned her name from an excellent book called
The Sight. Anyway, she has easily become my favorite spirit beast to use.
Looks wise I find the ghost wolf skin covers most of the flaws of the old world wolf model, but it can still be a little strange looking. The little spiky hairs on the backs of the legs being one of those strange things (bottom left). I think they're supposed to represent the feathering wolves get on the backs of their legs, but they look more like defensive weapons or something. One nice thing that the skin hides is the goofy way the ruff sits on their back--it looks more smoothed out with this skin (2nd from bottom right). The goofy snarl still looks just as weird, however (2nd from bottom left). And when viewing Karoma from the front, her face sort of seems to disappear and you can see right through her.
Animations and Sounds:

So wolves have three idle animations, however, Karoma did NOT want to do the howl one so I'm lacking a screenshot for it. Their other two idles are the scratch (top left) and the ground sniff (bottom left). The old world wolf model has one of my favorite run animations; they sort of lope along and it looks pretty graceful (bottom middle). Her swim is a basic doggy paddle (top right and bottom right). Sound wise, Karoma's barks and growls are actually sort of ghostly sounding while she's in combat, which is really cool.
Combat:

So for the combat, I did the usual of putting Larka on a dummy and capturing her animations, and I also did a battleground with her.
I'll start with her fighting animations. She has two basic animations, a lunge and bite to the left (top left) and a lunge and bite to the right (middle left). I found a strange shot of her under BW where it looks like her jaw is completely unhinging (bottom left). I also managed to catch a shot of her using Spirit Mend on herself (top right).
And now to the nitty gritty. Spirit Beasts have three special abilities. The first is Prowl, allowing them to stealth and gain a bonus to their first attack. The second is Roar of Courage, which is arguably one of the best hunter buffs to have around as it gives a bonus to agility and strength. The third spirit beast special is Spirit Mend. Spirit Mend is a single target heal ability that works just like druids' Regrowth spell. It's also decently powerful, making these guys great for soloing and PvP.
I did do a BG on my hunter like I promised, granted, I hadn't played the game in a while so I was a bit rusty, especially since SV is my PvP spec.

But anyway, I felt that I did decently well considering my crappy gear level and lack of any real skill. Karoma definitely makes for an excellent PvP buddy. The ghost wolf skin is kind of hard to see and that heal is definitely powerful for keeping yourself alive in a tight pinch. Not to mention the decent amount of damage Larka was putting out since I never really saw her get focused during the BG. Overall, they're definitely handy pets to have around in both PvE and PvP and in the right hands can probably be really powerful.
I might come back and do another one of these once I figure out which hunter I want to use and hope that I don't forget about it. XD