Pets are usually more of a nuisance than anything due to the number of keys needed to command them.

My suggestions:

1) Establish a way to command a pet to always act as "meatshield" in corridors. This is usually the best way to walk with a pet (specially with 7lbs) and they always auto-switch places with you whenever they get a free tile to do so. Maybe a simple toggle between current behaviour and one that when you walk into a pet, it moves away from the hero, not towards it. This could probably make life easier when trying to bend a corridor turn with a pet as meatshield.

2) Without affecting the charisma system for pet obedience have some kind of easier control over them like a key to immediately command the closest pet to attack the closest enemy to your hero or to stay put. He might still not obey like usual, but the current: select pet -> select command -> select target is just very clunky and hard on the fingers for bards =P