The way I understand it, yes. It also seems like ig you use the shout, any followers in combat with said animal, will still be fighting it. And the shout at least can be overpowered by spriggans. I don't know if command animal can. It also seems like you can still use the shout to get Mammoths and it does have greater range. So I don't know exactly what creatures the Wood Elf power works on. But as far as I can read, yes one is a little bit more powerful than the other, but I'm not sure if it really matters too much.
The Wikis said you could, they could be wrong though.