A friend of mine has decided to focus on animal training/friendship. Anyone have any advice on a good approach to building a powerful relationship with a creature i.e. good starting creature to befriend, and tactics as they level? I think they have chosen the druid route to calming animals if that makes any difference?

I would recommend attempting to raise all stats for which animal training depends. Besides the natural stats, as you train wear equip that increases those stats as well. For example, it can be easy to increase your chr and wis with just a few easilly obtained items.

As far as which pet to choose, that is a matter of personal perference. I would recommend trying a few and seeing which one you like the most. A few of my favorites were a turtle from grasslands south of the great woods, the marlin from the deep, and the vulture from the wastelands. Others have had great success with spiders, volves, wargs, bulls, cows, scorpions, and rams. Have fun deciding which one suits your preferences.

For leveling them allow the pet to do all of the killing, for they gain experience as they fight dependend on the damage they do per round, not just on exp from killing so the more you let them do the damage the faster they will gain experience.

Good luck!

I personally haven't befriend many animals (for long term). But, I have seen other players with many animals. The most popular for damage seems to be the Marlin on the sea just NE of cythera. It seems to do the most damage with decent hps.