Heheh welcome to the wonderful world of hunters!

I love them so much i'm currently levelling a second.
As others have said you will be able to tame your own choice of pet at level 10, and you get a second pet slot at around level 18 i believe

If you are planning to level with quests a tenacity pet would be ideal as they are excellent at tanking for you (bear, turtle, crab, boar, gorillas,etc).

However any pet with a snare or trap will be awesome too (for example are spiders, scorpions, monkeys)!

You will kill stuff really fast at low level though. Mini hunters are so op. ;D
The wonderful thing about hunters is they are great soloists

within reason of course, (I GO SOLO DEATHWING HC!!

) but you might find you dont need help with group quests as often as others do.
Pretty early in your levelling you will get excellent abilities such as scatter shot (disorients target), disengage (jump backwards

) concussive shot (slows targets run speed) which are all awesome for surviving
God luck and enjoy and have fun and eat cake!

<3