Scent of Success
My wife played a ranger during 3rd Edition, most of that play during an Organised Play – Living Greyhawk to be specific. A quick of that campaign was each adventure occupied a week or more of your character’s life (you could go on 52 local adventures or 26 distant adventures), which also meant that you could swap out animal companions freely between adventures. She had a small list of convenient pets and would choose the one most useful for any given adventure. Our region was also set on a sea, so there were many aquatic adventures as well. One of the campaign’s arcs was underwater. For those sessions, she brought in the octopus, thus sparing the party the pleasure of wet wolf.
I recall, reading the legend of Huma (Dragonlance), that there was a minotaur complaining about the smell of wet humans while they were sheltering in a small tent during a downpour…
Also, it happened once, in a campaign during which the players all had companions or familiars, that they kept forgetting them and didn’t rely on their abilities. So I had their PC’s minds trapped inside their companions because of a curse, and they had to play using the pet’s abilities to solve the situation…. they never forgot about their little friends again!