Since I cannot find a way to open a new thread I'll follow the recommendation of the Support Team to post this in a thread with the request to have it moved to a new thread.
disclaimer: this is my very first guide, so bare with any structural incoherences 
Also:
The formating tools in this forum seem broken for me... the initial guide uses color-code, font-size and anchors to enhance the readability - since the original guide is in our guild's "members only" section i cannot even link to it. I hope this is bareable as a wall of text.
As the title already suggests this is an attempt to create a complete guide to everything involving the pet-system in RoM. This is based on browsing bazillion of forums and quite some in-game experimenting. I will try to save you the effort to do all that yourself, but by no means can i promise that i know everything - so please contribute if you have anything to add or spot mistakes.
Table of contents
I What are pets and how can i get them?
II What do pets do?
1. passive stat bonuses
2. passive skills
3. active skills
4. gathering
III Of eggs and skins
IV What the hell is Aptitude?
1. stats and how they affect skills
i experience
ii talent points
iii loyalty
iv nourishment
v training
vi aptitude
2. merging pets
V FAQ & common misconceptions
1. Are pets really worth the effort and money i have to put into them?
2. Pets are just annoying and a gold-dump
3. What do I need to do to get a Pet-Event pop-up?
4. I'm trying to merge my pet but it says I need a pair merging ticket
5. How do I get my pet to attack?
6. How do I open the pet window?
7. Is there a way to summon/unsummon my pet from the action bar?
8. Can I make my pet into a house pet and have it lick my face when I come home?
I What are pets and how can i get them?
The pet system in RoM allows every character to raise pets. Since the implementation in Chapter 3 these are not only for cosmetic purposes like the ones from the cash shop anymore. Pets are usually creatures from the beastiary that follow their master and add different bonuses and skills while summoned. The pet system overall can get quite complex and a lot of people i know stay away from it because of it. Yet pets can hugely advance and support your gameplay with their passive and active skills and stat bonuses - if you know how to use them efficiently. Thus this guide.
To obtain a pet you have to get hold of a pet egg. These can be either obtained by just buying them at the auction hall or by purchasing "huntsman traps" at the pet hunters in the cities to catch magic cavies that spawn randomly from killed mobs. A huntsman trap might appear quite expensive at 8.000 gold each at early levels but to my experience it pays off in the long run. I will go into more detail on this in part V.
Catching a magic cavy requires a little skill. Once a cavy spawns you have to set up a trap by right-clicking it in your inventory and then make the cavy walk into the trap to take a pet egg from it before releasing the poor thing again
To do soyou need to get the cavy between you and the trap since it will run away from you. The sensor that makes it run from you seems to tick every few seconds so when walking around it to make it walk towards the trap stay far enough away from it so it won't go off in an unwanted direction. Once it gets close enough to the trap it will get caught. Sometimes it will not and just walk past it without getting trapped. I am not sure if this is a bug or just an intended feature to make catching a cavy more challenging. Just don't get discouraged, go around it again and try again.
Cavies come in two varieties - "Magic Cavy" and "Golden Magic Cavy". The latter is very rare but tends to give you much higher grade pet eggs.
Once you have the pet egg in your inventory simply right click it and the pet menu will come up. Drag the egg into a free breeding slot at the top left of the window. You will now see the pet and it's stats in the menu. To call it up/summon it click the left of the 4 buttons under the picture of your pet, the second one if you want to recall it.
Note that you cannot convert an already bred pet back into an egg. If you want to make a breeding slot available again you have to set your pet free (4th button below your pet picture), which will basically dump it for good.
II What do pets do?
As mentioned pets add quite a few additions to your gameplay. I'll try to sum them up in this section.
1. passive stat bonuses
Every pet will give it's master bonuses to their main stats (Str, Dex, Sta, Int, Wis) while summoned. The amount is dependent on the rarity and element of the pet egg, it's nourishment and the mysterious aptitude. I will go more into detail on this in chapter III and IV.
In this example the pet is level 14, element dark, with a base stat growth of 3 Str, 4 Dex and 2 Sta. The assist value is the amount that is added to your own stats while the pet is summoned. Have a look at your expensively statted endgame gear and tell me that these stat bonusses of an only lvl14 pet aren't impressive. And even though the Stamina bonus is on the lower end of the assists it still adds a good +400HP to my health.
2. passive skills
passive skills are similar to the passive skills you get for your character. You have to use talent points to make them usable, usually 500 TP for to level a passive. Here is a list of available passive skills. To my knowledge every pet has the same set of upgradeable passive skills.
Improved Attack Speed - Attack and spellcasting Speed enhanced by 1% (+1% per skill-level)
Improved Health - the master's health points are raise by 2% (+2% per skill-level)
Improved Defense - physical and magical defense is raised by 2% (+2% per skill-level)
Improved Healing - all healing effects are enhanced by 2% (+2% per skill-level)
Critical Enigma - magical and physical crit-rate is raised by 2% (+2% per skill-level)
Tenacity - HP and MP recovery rate is enhanced by 20 (+20 per skill-level)
Attack Secrets - physical and magical attack power is raised by 1% (+1% per skill-level)
Lucky Escort - drop-rate bonus of 1% (+1% per skill level)
doesn't sound bad? Well to be honest it's not as promising as i initially though considering you can only raise the skills every 15 levels of the pet and talent points aren't that abundant. Yet i still like to take what i can get. Plus these skills seem to actually be completely independent from any other stats so you will even get this bonus even if you keep your pet at the verge of starvation with 0 loyalty whatsoever. Plus - for once a %-based addition that is free and to our favor
To make them usable go to the second tab on the upper right of the pet window. Taken you have the Talent Points (the pet version not your char's TP) and the necessary pet level you can now upgrade them as wished. By default the window will only show the skills that can be learned at the moment. If you also want to look at all the skills you can eventually get, check the little red orb over the skill window where it says "Index".
3. active skills
Ah, the active pet skills. Always a common cause of confusion. Dependent on the skin of your pet (e.g. wolf-cub, red-pincer cave crab..) your pet has a set amount of 2-3 active skills that it will use randomly in battle. Because of the sheer amount of existing skins out there it would be impossible to list them all here, but there are a couple lists out there that give an overview of all the so far known skins out there and the active skills they come with. I will link them in chapter III.
One thing they all have in common is one attack skill, either physical or magical based on the skin. Additionally they usually come with one or two buffs/debuffs. Since they are randomly cast they are nothing to rely on in battle though. Also, the frequency of your pet using them is highly relying on the pet's loyalty. Don't expect your pet to use any active skills when it's loyalty is at rock bottom.
Also note, that your pet might also decide to randomly attack a mob even if you haven't focussed it yourself. The usability of pets in end-game raids will therefor probably be limited to pets with low loyalty just for the passives or for boss-battles where you don't have to worry about accidentally aggroing adds. Still i have found my pet's actives to be quite enjoyable while questing.
You can find your pet's active skills to the right of your skill window. I really wish they were controllable - "Fanning the Flames" could be such a great tank-skill D:
4. gathering
Another often misunderstood feature. You can use your pet to gather materials for you! Sounds straight forward enough, but is not as self-explanatory as it sounds. To get to the gathering tab just click on the 3rd tab at upper right of your pet window (the one that has a symbol that looks like an Indiana Jones whip :3)
First off: a pet CANNOT gather while it is summoned. It will happily gather in the comfort of it's breeding slot though, as ridiculous as that might sound. That also means that it is completely independent of what you are doing while it is gathering, also of where you are. A pet can gather ash wood while you are raiding HoS if you want it to.
All you need for it to gather are the gathering tools you can buy at every pet hunter for 100 gold a piece(always gives me a chuckle when i purchase 99 "small hoes"
). For every tool you get one shot at gathering a material. You will either get a regular mat, a special mat (cyanide e.g.) or a "mysterious item", which has no other use than being sold to an NPC for 101 gold.
What you can gather depends on the pet's gathering level which will raise by gathering. The levels are linked to the level requirements for materials on the world map, so to gather silver ore you'll need to have your pet's Ore gathering level at 31. e.g..
Once you got your production tools from the pet hunter you can drag them into the small slot to the left of the dropdown menu. Then you select the material you want to gather from the dropdown menu, which will offer all materials that require the same or a lower gathering level than the one your pet has. Once you did that click on the green check-mark at the bottom to have your pet start gathering.
Note: A lot of people think that 100 gold for every material is very expensive and not worth messing with. But let me share a little math with you. First off - take into account that a gathering pet will allow you to farm materials while you are questing, raiding, afking, etc. so you have a lot more time to do the things that are fun (unless you love to farm for hours). Second - if you farm for money you will obviously earn less than when you farm yourself, BUT it is not a negative calculation as a lot of people think.
Let's take copper ore for this example. Depending on the market it can sell for up to 300 gold or more at the auction house. The mysterious powder that you will get half of the time sells for 101 gold at any vendoring NPC and the Rock Crystal as the rare special mat will either sell at the auction house or sell at an NPC for almost the same price as the tools cost. Also always check the prices for refined materials - you might make even more by refining it first.
So if you play it right you'll never really pay for letting your pet farm, much more likely you will earn money by doing so, especially once you get it to farm high level mats. Granted, not as much as you would by farming yourself, but i myself am lazy, and earning money while i'm levelling is very convenient for me.
And even if you craft and need the mats for that, 100 gold for a mat no matter which level still is much cheaper than buying them of the auction house. Your call.
Just keep in mind that you cannot use a gathering pet in combat. I for example have two pets - one that i level and use for combat and another one that i just use for farming. Yes, you can have one pet gathering and the other one summoned for the bonuses AT THE SAME TIME.
III Of Eggs and Skins
There are a variety of pet eggs available in this game. I'll be lazy in this chapter since there is a description in the romwiki that describes it better than i ever could:
http://www.theromwiki.com/Magic_Pets
Some minor notes from my end:
- There is a disagreement over the fact that starting out with a high level pet is a good idea. A couple of people claim that raising a pet yourself from a low level will give you a pet with overall better stats once it reaches the same level of a pet egg that already started out at that level. To be honest i didn't get the chance to check on that myself, what i can say for sure though is, that you can control where the stats go better by raising it yourself. More on that in chapter IV.4.
- The number one choice for which pet to choose should be the element of the pet since it defines which stats get the highest passive boost. A list of which elements are boosted to what degree is also in the above link. If you are unsure which Stats your class needs or what they do click here.
- regarding skins: As i mentioned earlier the active skills are only of limited use since they are randomly cast, therefor nothing to rely on, and can get you into trouble at times. With the right element you might as well pick by cuteness
(obviously don't choose a pet with an aggro-increase buff if you are a DPS though)
IV What the Hell is Aptitude
Even though partly covered in the romwiki this part will include descriptions of the stats as a quick reference enhanced by a description of how to raise them and where to get the items for that.
One general and extremely rare and random one are so called "pet events". These are random events in which a little window, not unlike the chat windows, pops up with the notice "your pet wants to talk to you". If you click it you will be given a choice of replies. Depending on which you choose your pet will gain a small amount of a certain stat. To be honest since this is rare and random, this has only happened twice to me and the gain in stats i got from it were so negligable that i can't give you much more information than this. Please feel free to add additional information.
What the hell is Aptitude? What's the difference between Training and Talent Points? How can i raise my Talent Points? How the heck do i level my pet? Worry no more - here are the answers
sidenote: as a rule - learn to love miller's farm! you can get there via the pet hunter and it offers repeatable quests to farm for free pet food and if you're lucky special items (descriptions in this section). Plus, if you haven't been there yet you will get a quest from the pet hunter inside that will reward you with an extra breeding slot (the only known way of obtaining one i know of so far, even though there are rumors that they can randomly drop from cavies... but i have never seen that happen).
1. Stats and How to Raise Them
There are 6 stats that can be directly influenced. And here is where most of the confusion starts.
i Experience
This one is kind of self-explanatory. Gain experience to level up your pet. What is rather confusing and not very intuitive is how to gain experience. You cannot level your pet by fighting with it! There are two ways to raise your pet's level. It does not decrease.
- feed your pet with "food" that adds Exp (told you .. not very intuitive). To feed your pet you click on the 3rd button below your pet picture and hover your mouse over the slot that appears, then just pick any of the list of available foods in your inventory to feed your pet with the bonuses.
In my experience it is not very efficient to level your pet this way, plus it can get expensive quite easily. Here's a little list of exp-food items and where/how to get them:
Golden Eggs - add +50 Training and +100 Experience
Now golden eggs are FANTASTIC, and i'll tell you why in just a minute. It is NOT because of their use as food. Golden Eggs are randomly obtained while doing the "An easy lay!" quest in Miller's Farm. Sometimes the chicken will lay one instead of the regular white ones. Depending on your luck you might need a while to get one.
Now the good news: Even though i personally think they are wasted if you feed them to your pet they have other great uses. One of my favorites (sorry for my greed) is to sell them. They usually sell for somewhere around 18k-25k at the AH. I tend to get about 5-6 every hour.. so that makes it still more efficient than say farming mats for gold. Farming golden eggs i was able to get myself a pair of prestatted wings at level 8
. Second you can use them to exchange pet-items from the pet hunter that are unavailable otherwise (i will mention those in the respective sections in this chapter).
Just one advice: DON'T use them to get that daily "free trap" from the pet hunter. You can buy two or more for the gold you'll get by selling it on the AH.
Miller's Special Cake
- add +1 Training, +5 Nourishment and +10 Experience
You get those from doing the "An easy lay!" quest at Miller's Farm as a questreward or you can buy it at the pet hunters for 3.500 gold. These stats are barely worth mentioning really. The best thing you get out of them is maybe the Nourishment, and that only really helps if you got a lot of these from spamming the quest to farm golden eggs.
- adds +1000 Exp and +500 Training
You can buy it at the pet hunter. To be honest i have no idea what the currency for this is. I have tried honor points, but that didn't work. I didn't try badges of trial, since i am saving for my guild titles. If anyone can enlighten me here i'd be glad.
- The second way to gain Exp is by merging pets with other pet eggs.
This is actually a slightly bigger topic and therefor deserves it's own small chapter. I will go into more detail in part two of this chapter. Just note that this is the most rewarding way to level your pet in many ways. You will see why.
ii Talent Points
Talent Points are used to level your passive skills. That is all there is. Now the more complicated part is how to obtain them. There are two ways to obtain them. They do not decrease other than by using them.
First you gain Talent Points by leveling up your pet. The amount gained from that is quite low though (if anyone knows the math behind that please let me know).
The second one is to exchange Training Points for them. And here is where another use for golden eggs comes in.
Enhancement Potion - Exchange 500 Training Points for 100 Talent Points when fed to pet
You can get this Potion by exchanging 2 golden eggs at the pet hunter inside of Miller's Farm, or by buying them at any pet hunter for the same unknown to me currency as the Powerful Pet Growth Potion.
iii Loyalty
Loyalty defines the amount of active skills your pet will use in battle. Below 60 Loyalty points your pet will not actively engage in battle. To my experience it only becomes noticeable at about 70+. The value of raising loyalty is controversial due to the above mentioned issues. Loyalty decreases by 3 if you die while your pet is summoned.
There are two ways that i know of (besides pet events) that can raise loyalty:
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll298/avtimo/desert.jpg - raises loyalty by 1 - can be bought from any pet hunter
and
"Favorite Meal"(sorry no screenie atm) - raises loyalty by 20 (!)
It's a random quest reward of the "Sweet Milk" quest at Miller's Ranch. It is extremely rare (i only managed to get it once) but it's certainly worth the effort (if you want your pet to be active in battle that is). Also just think about the amount of free pet food you will get on your way to it.
iv Nourishment
Nourishment defines the %-value at which the assist-stats are added to your character stats while your pet is summoned. At at 80-100 Nourishment you get the full monty, meaning 100% added assist stats. 60-80 still give you 80% and so on. I would say this is one of the most important ones to keep at max, even though it is the easiest one to lose, since your pet will lose nourishment over time while being summoned. It also decreases by 40 if you die while your pet is summoned.
There is only one way to raise it - feeding your pet. To do so your pet must not be summoned, then just click on the 3rd button below your pet's image and hover your mouse over the slot to pick any food available in your inventory.
But there are multiple ways to acquire pet food:
-
special cake as mentioned above,
Nutricious Cheese +10 Nourishment
The first way is to buy it from the pet hunters. This is by far the worst way to get it, and a reason for a common misconception - that keeping pets fed is a gold-dump.
BUT you can also get a variety of pet foods, most of them more potent than the ones mentioned above, from doing the "Sweet Milk" quest at Miller's Farm.
Random rewards for this quest include:
Nutricious Cheese - +10 Nourishment
Low-Fat Goat's Milk - +20 Nourishment
Beef Skewer - +30 Nourishment
(and of course the "Favorite Meal")
Also, as mentioned above you can earn "Miller's Special Cake" as a quest reward from the "An easy lay!" quest - but the +5 Nourishment are only really a nice side effect of farming golden eggs. If it is about food - by all means - do the "Sweet Milk" quest.
v Training
Training Points in my opinion are a weird intermittent thing between ... um actually nothing ... and Talent Points
They do not decrease unless you use them.
Well actually you can use them for two things.
First as described above you can use them to be exchanged for Talent Points which you need for your passive skills.
Second you need them for another way to use golden eggs. 3 golden eggs can be exchanged at the pet hunter at Miller's Farm for an
"Awakening Potion" which will exchange 1.000 Training Points for 1 Aptitude Point.
There are 2 1/2 ways to gain training points.
- The first one is by merging your pet with another one. Again i refer to the pet merging section in IV.2.
- The second one is the already mentioned "Powerful Growth Potion" that you can acquire at the pet hunters for a to me yet unknown currency.
- The 2 1/2th one is the also already mentioned "Miller's Special Cake", which i don't grant a full rating because the +1 Training Point it gives is about as useful as grain of salt in a stew-pot. (remember, you need 500 Training Points to get 100 Talent Points and 500 Talent Points to up a single passive skill...)
vi Aptitude
Last but not least the mysterious Aptitude. It is the only stat besides the base stats that you know before breeding an egg. So what does it mean?
Aptitude functions as a sort of multiplier when calculating the amount of assist-gain you will get from leveling your pet, besides the base growth defined by the rarity of the egg. I am not sure about the math here, but the higher your aptitude, the bigger the gain will be. Just as the level and the element a freshly caught pet egg comes with this is also a random base stat, but unlike the other two it can be raised once the egg is bred. It does not decrease in any case.
There are two ways to raise your pet's aptitude, and considering it defines the amount of growth your pet will go through while leveling this might be one of the first things to consider.
- First you can raise it by merging it with a pet egg that has a higher aptitude than the one you are merging it with. (see IV.4)
- Second you can raise it by 1 by exchanging 3 golden eggs for an "Awakening Potion" at the hunter at Miller's Farm that will transform 1.000 Training Points for 1 Aptitude Point. To be honest considering the value of golden eggs and Training Points this will probably only be a real option once your pet's aptitude is so high, that buying a pet egg with higher aptitude will cost a fortune.
2 Merging Pets
Merging Pets is almost a science when it comes to it. Yet it is probably the most rewarding way to control your pet's stat gain and also the best way to earn Training Points and experience. There is a great guide on the RoM forums that i'd like to link to wouldn't the forum be down again. I guess I will just cover the basics here and add the link later.
You can reach the pet merging window by choosing the 4th tab on the upper right of your pet window.
Merging two pets requires you to set an "Agent" and a "Reagent". The Agent is the pet you want to advance using this process, the Reagent is a pet egg that you want to take from to do so. It's important to know that the Reagent will disappear for good after the merge, while the Agent will stay with ideally enhanced Training, Experience, ideally Stats and possibly aptitude.
You can do a maximum of 3 merges a day.
Now how exactly does this work?
Let's start with the basics. To be able to merge a pet egg with an Agent, the Reagent (meaning the pet egg you want to merge to your own pet -> Agent) has to fulfill the following:
- the Reagent egg needs to be of the same or lower lvl than the Agent egg
- the Reagent egg needs to be the same element as the Agent egg, or a neutral element (rune pet eggs). Neutral element Agents can only be merged with other neutral element Reagents.
Because of this Rune Pet Eggs are extremely sought for since they have a neutral element and can be merged with any other element.
To be able to use a Reagent the egg has to be placed in a breeding slot first, so
if you plan on raising your pet by merging always keep a free breeding slot available! once you've placed the Agent(left slot in the breeding window) and Reagent (right slot in the breeding window) make sure you look at the preview and double check you are not accidentally using your main pet as a reagent, thereby losing it, and click the blue orb inbetween them to merge them. (The "Pair merging" button that intuitively seems the one to be clicked is a function that doesn't seem to be implemented yet. Rumors have it you can earn a pair merging ticket randomly from a pet events or cavies, but i have no confirmation on that.)
I will not go into the math behind this, the link i will post as soon as i can reach the forums describes this in almost annoying detail
The best way to look for decent Reagents is at the auction hall. Keep checking it, especially for cheap Rune Pet Eggs around your Pet's level and you won't have to spend much on leveling your pet.
You can use a merge for a couple of different goals (in theory you can achieve all four of them in one merge, but prices at the AH usually make me choose one over the other):
- for the experience
In general the rule is - the closer the Reagent's level is to the Agent's level the more experience your pet will gain from the merge, the maximum being +1000 experience at the same level. If you are trying to level your pet you should therefor look for a Reagent that is the same level or at least not more than two levels below it, since the amount decreases really quickly.
- for Training Points
no matter what level the Reagent (as long as it is not higher than the Agent's) will get you +50 Training Points for a merge. The only exception are Rune Pet Eggs which give +100 by default. That applies to any pet egg just bred to be a reagent. If you end up leveling, and therefor also training, a pet and then end up to use it as a reagent the full amount of the reagent's training will be transferred to the agent's training. Since this is a less common way to do it i wouldn't bother too much with that knowledge, tough.
- for raising aptitude
if you can find a decently priced Reagent with a higher aptitude than your own pet you can also use the merge to raise your pet's aptitude. Again I don't know the math behind this, but it is definately not the mean of the difference between the two, it's below that. In this case it will be helpful to look for Reagents that are as much lower leveled than the Agent. The reason for this being, that you'll want to raise the aptitude as much as you can before taking advantage of it's higher multiplier to the stats when leveling the next time. The highest aptitude i have found so far was on blue rune pet eggs(in theory the least rare of the rune pet eggs - in reality probably most rare) which you can often find at the auction hall with an aptitude of 80 up to even 99 (the highest i have seen so far).
- for raising stats
This is probably the hardest part, not only because the stats are randomly calculated from the base growth once you breed them. This means you won't know what you got until you have no chance of returning them. More to that in a little bit.
The calculation of the gain to stats is similar to the aptitude calculation. If the Reagent's stats are higher than the Agent's, the Agent will get a gain to those stats from the merge (in the above picture those are Int and Wis). This way you can actually enhance the stats completely independent from the pet's base growth that comes from it's element. This gives you a tool to control where your pet will head and is in the end why raising a pet from a low level might be worth it in the end.
The reason this can get hard and expensive though is, that the easiest to merge pet eggs, the rune pet eggs, have an even, but rather low base growth for every stat. Even at the same level, where the multipliers will get closest to what your pet's stats with multiplier are at that level, chances are they will only exceed your pet's stats in the "unwanted" stats, the ones that are low on yours cause you chose an element that disregards stats you don't need.
To get a real gain out of it you will go through the trouble to find a pet egg that ideally is rarer than the one you have (for the higher base growth will make it more likely to exceed yours) and is of the same level (high multiplier multiplied less times will not really help) AND element to possibly get an additional boost in the stats you are already focusing on defined by your pet's element. This can not only be a frustrating but also expensive search.
Something that might make things a little easier is an item from the pet hunters that will erase any elemental properties from pet eggs, then again it has to be purchased with this currency i don't know about...
for even more detailed information look at the
guide in the RoM forums.
V FAQ & Common Misconceptions
1. Are pets really worth the effort and money you have to put into them?
Yes it is! Well obviously in the end it is up to you to decide. If you read the guide you will see, that there are easy ways to reduce the amount of money you need to put in them. Food you can get for free in unlimited quantities by doing the quests at Miller's Farm, and with nourishment being the main factor for the %-value of your pet's passive stat-assists you could settle for this being the only stat to really pay attention to. Just get a decently leveled pet with an element that suits your class and this pet can give you stat bonuses that even your time- and money-consuming end-game gear won't give you. (e.g. my lvl22 Holy, Dark Pet gives me an additional 1.300 HP value and over +340 Dex and +293 Str at 100 nourishment - and this doesn't involve messing with anything other than feeding it regularly)
2. Pets are just annoying and a gold-dump
Granted - at times the constant chatter you get from your pet can be slightly distracting. But are you seriously going to throw away an awesome boost to your stats just because of that? Considering the gold-dump concern. If you don't bother with buying eggs to merge to your pet the only thing that will actually cost you money are the pots to raise loyalty (since getting a "Favorite Meal" from the "Sweet Milk" quest is so extremely rare. Food as mentioned you can easily get for free at Miller's Farm). That being said - since loyalty only influences the random triggering of your pet's active skills there is no real need for this stat anyway. The active skills are uncontrollable and therefor nothing to rely on - if you plan on taking advantage of the stat-assists in raids and dungeons you might even want to have a low loyalty to make sure your pet doesn't randomly take aggro when you're in a one-pull situation.
Now merging your pet to raise it's level and or aptitude will cost you money. It is highly unlikely you will be lucky enough to catch enough pet eggs with the values you want yourself so you'll have to rely on the auction hall. The higher your own pet's level and aptitude the more expensive eggs will be that actually raise your experience or stats. Still, consider the gain in passive stat-boost you will get by actually spending money on leveling your pet.
Just as an example - my old pet had these stat-assists at level 14:
+91 Str
+127 Dex
+69 Sta
Tbh i was too lazy to raise my pet further so i just bought a lvl 22 Holy egg, same element (dark):
+ 293 Str
+ 340 Dex
+ 233 Sta
Now tell me that spending a few 100k to raise these assist values are not worth it while you spend millions (and months of work) on purified fusion stones, transmutor charges and stats to boost your end-game gear for way less stat bonuses.
3. What do I need to do to get a Pet Event pop-up?
Pet events are extremely rare and happen randomly when having the pet summoned for a long time (1:30 hours +). In my whole time in this game it has only happened to me twice and the awards for it where really meager (+10 training and the like), so I wouldn't bother to push for it.
4. I am trying to merge my pet but it says i need a pair merging ticket
You have to click the blue orb between your Agent and Reagent slots to merge your pet. The "pair merging"-button so far seems to not be implemented, even though there are unconfirmed rumors you can get pair merging tickets as rare drops from pet events and cavies. Supposedly they will allow you to merge two pets of different elements.
5. How do i get my pet to attack?
Your pet's active skills are triggered randomly once the pet's loyalty exceeds 60. I personally have only actually seen my pet do something actively at around 70+. Note, that the active skills are triggered randomly, so you cannot "tell" your pet to attack or use a buff, it will do so whenever it feels like it and sometimes will even attack a mob that you aren't even fighting yourself.
6. How do I open the pet window?
By default there is a little button with a paw-icon on it to the lower right of your character picture.
7. Is there a way to summon/unsummon my pet from the action bar?
Yes there is but you will need to use a small macro for that. I have posted this macro for your convenience in the forum and also guide section . Just copy paste the code into your macro editor and change the numbers in the brackets to the breeding slot number you have your pet in and you can easily call it up or back from your action bar.
8. Can I make my pet a house pet and have it lick my face when I get home?
Unfortunately -no :3
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Quoted from "x303pro01;302739"
where do we get an extra pet ticket?
) not had any time to really check out the pet system.
. Now just need some additional breeding slots before I start raising it so I can raise it perfectly. I'd like to hit 100 Apt with it before I hit lvl 4. (doable, just takes lots of low level eggs and 2 free breeding slots) 
