3 - Animal Companion

Animal Companion
Tier: 3 Activation: Passive Ranked: Yes
Your character creates a bond with a single animal as approved by your GM. Typically, this requires the animal be appropriately befriended and have a positive relationship with character before this talent can be used on it. The bond persists as long as your character chooses, although at your GM’s discretion, the bond may also be broken due to abusive treatment or other extenuating circumstances. As long as the bond persists, the companion follows your character, and you dictate the animals’ overall behavior (although, since the companion is only loyal to you, not dominated, it may still perform inconvenient actions such disagreeing with you, getting drunk, and pursuing their own private objectives).
Once per round in structured encounters, your character may spend one maneuver to direct their animal in performing one action and one maneuver during your character’s turn. The animal must be within hearing and visual range of your character (generally medium range) to do this. Otherwise, the animal does not contribute to the encounter. The specifics of its behavior are up to you and your GM.
When choosing the statline for your animal companion, refer to the Alternative Conjuring Rules - Templates and use the Minion summon type as your starting template. You may use any of the non-forbidden elemental profiles available there to reflect your animal (such as using Earth to reflect a bear) not just the "beast" profile. For each additional rank of Animal Companion you may increase the complexity of your companion. (From Minion to Rival and then to Nemesis) 
For every additional rank of Animal Companion your character has, increase the allowed silhouette of the companion by one (this may mean your character gets a new companion, or their companion grows in size), or you can increase the characteristic and skills of the companion as discussed with your GM.
Note: You may only have one active companion talent per character.