Advice for a Hunter

[Kevin]

My level 14 hunter is being offered two abilities that I can't assess: Eagle Eye and Eyes of the Beast. She's husbanded her money carefully and has some very useful abilities at lv 18, so I'm trying not to spend on things that aren't really needed. Are these skills worth the silver and what are their benefits?
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I'm up to L28 with my biggest hunter and I have yet to use Eagle Eye for anything other than a little fun. With the line of sight limits on Eagle Eye, it just doesn't seem to have a lot of scouting use over the tracking abilities. There are some situations that I could see where it woudl be helpful, but it also seems like something that is easily skipped if you need to save money.

I have used Eyes of the Beast as a pulling and scouting tactic at times, but again, it isn't needed at lower levels at all and can wait till later.

My pet has 70 training points and it seems that I'm the one who trains him, but I can't figure out how I do this. Does that skill comes at a higher level or is there somewhere that I have to take him? This might be clearer to me if I read through the entire skill base when I visit the Hunter Trainer. If that's the answer, just tell me and save your time. I try not to read too far ahead and spoil the surprises.

It seems that in order to get the full benefit of the hunter's art, I'll have to train a number of pets. Currently I have a sabretooth. Is it wise, when the time comes, to try different "classes" of pets: cat vs. vs owl vs. sea creature of some kind? Is that the way to get the greatest benefit from cross-training?
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You have to learn the claw, bite, or cower skill from a pet you tame. Some animals will start with one or more of them and they simply have to use it in combat a few times before you can learn it. You will need to tame new things to get new ranks. Growl is something that you know how to teach just from being a hunter, and you have to buy the higher ranks of it from the pet trainers. I use http://www.goodintentionsguild.info/hunters.html all the time to find what I want to tame to get a new skill. I just stable my main pet go tame the critter, feed it a little bit so that it can stick around for a few fights, learn the skill then release it. I then go back and train my main pet that new skill.

There are some minor variations in the pet stats. Some will do a little more damage, so will have a bit better defense or armor. It can pay to play around with them a bit. One stable slot isn't too expensive so that you can put one pet that you want to keep in there and then try out others.

Hope that clears some of it up. If you have more questions ask. I have great fun with the hunter class, but like all my knowledge I've only ever played anything to the upper 20's early 30's since I spread my time around so much. :)