In world of warcraft the landscape and the surrounding environment provide a vast array of objects, flora, and fauna which include pets that world of warcraft gamers can interact with. This gives the player the fantastic interactive gaming experience that WoW is famed for and the reason why 8 million users, and counting, log on every day to play around the clock 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

For you to be able to have and control pets in World of Warcraft effectively, you will need to choose a race that have either Hunter or Warlock as a class; for Alliance races these are Dwarves, Night Elves & Dranei and for Horde it's Trolls, Taurens and Blood Elves.

Other classes can also control pets but not as well as Warlocks and Hunters. See at the end of the article how other classes can acquire and control pets.

Hunters have the best knowledge of beasts roaming the wild. In World of Warcraft their skills are unique in that they are the supreme masters of all beasts found in the game. They have the gift of being to befriend beasts and turn them into their pet with which they travel and battle together in quests and adventures within the game. World of warcraft hunter pets and their masters, also gain experience and abilities as they progress in the game. Hunters, as they increase their power, are able to gain more knowledge and experience in order to acquire more and more exotic and powerful pets to travel and fight along with.

The only draw back to the Hunters ability of controlling multiple pets is that they can only have one pet by their side at a time. To get round using more than one pet, Hunters have the skill to summon and dismiss pets. This way while battling or questing on any location in the game, they can select the pet that is the most suitable in the situation they are facing.

Hunters can also transfer abilities between pets. This way, anytime they gain a new pet, they can further increase whatever powers that beast had before the Hunter tamed it. It's very useful to have this skill as pets come in all shapes and sizes with species ranging from spiders to tigers to zebra striped unicorns. Each pet comes with a particular ability which you then can improve by taking special abilities of other pets you have tamed. This is very powerful stuff!

The other class with the ability to acquire and control pets in World of Warcraft are Warlocks. Races that can have Warlocks in their class are Humans and Gnomes for the Alliance; and Orcs, Blood Elves and the Undead for the Horde.

Warlocks do not control wild beasts as pets, but instead they control demons found in the nefarious regions of World of Warcraft. Demons include Infernals, imps, succubi, and Void Walkers. The other way these demon pets differ from the Hunter's wild beast pets is that they do not have to be by the warlock's side and have their own independent controls.

Warlocks and Hunters are born with the ability to have pets although other classes like Priests and Engineers have can also have the ability to have pets. Priests can control humanoid monsters as pets for a limited time while Engineers can construct pets. Also other classes can find items that can create pets but for a limited period only.

Finally it should be noted that all players, and hence all races and classes in World of Warcraft, can buy pets. But these are pets that cannot be used in combat and are only for being looked at and taken for a walk in the park, much the way we do in the real world.

As a hunter that is the question I often hear asked and is easy to answer. The best pet in World of Warcraft is the Cat which is far and away the best and is the pet of choice used to powerlevel in Joana's guide. I've used it and it rocks. Firstly they are commonly available right off the bat, as soon as you enter the Barrens you will be able to tame one just outside the crossroads and unless you are less than level 11 you ought to do so quite easily. They have a vast range of skills like Prowl, Bit, Growl, cower, Claw and Dash. The only downside is their low-ish health but have the highest net bonuses and high damage capabilities.