Long ago, in the time of gpose and lack of bracers, the ability to decompose corpses from pets was seen as such a huge imbalance that we had decompose turned into breo. Since that time pets have not changed.
I propose pets should consume everything they kill, so we can have pets looked at again. In this way, I believe we can achieve a balance of worthwhile pets (ones comparable to skills) and not have to debate how it would affect our overall balance.
The current state of pets leaves us with bears as meatshields for those few extra seconds of combat. I'd like to see some originality and creative rendering to make upgraded versions of swallows and hawks worth calling upon again.
Salius