Yes, that helped. Level40? Holy crap. HGood thing I sold off all that junk then.
I finished the first quest with taming rod thing but the taming rod only works for 15 minutes. You get to choose the animal as your pet/companion?
Any animal can be your pet, as long as it's not an exotic creature, which only higher level beast master talent specced Hunters can use.
I've got a survival specced hunter at 80, using a wolf. That's the ideal setup for raids last I checked. I advise you to level with the beastmaster talents mostly though, it'll make it much easier for you untill you hit level 80. A terrorsaur is the best beastmaster pet, you'll probably encounter one at around level 50-55.
Hunter is a very fun class to play, though I've been more interested in my orc warrior, who I'm levelling as a tank.