i'm a noob, teach me how to use the pet window

[anfrey]

so after reading several threads there, it seems as though the "protect me" and "protect self" options might be toggles that can be turned on or off? i'm really not sure and don't know. can someone explain the intricacies of the pet window, as this is my first ever pet class and i'm quite lost, to tell you the truth... a lot of the techniques described in the forum mention that "protect me" and "protect self" should not be on... how do i turn them off??i'm only a 17th season coercer, so quite new to this. any and all help on this subject (and others) is greatly appreciated!

[Lader]

<DIV>there is a list of buttons in the pet window...protect self, protect me, attack, back off, stay, follow, and dismiss (at least, dismiss is for conj, not sure for coercer). In most cases I have protect self and protect me enabled. Should i be not paying attention, the pet will attack and i can control the situation. In groups, sometimes they ask to not protect me. If you get aggro and you havent told the pet to attack anything, it will attack what is beating you (thus fulfilling protect me command) making it harder to lose aggro. Every time you attack something you should press the attack button with the tank targetted. This will attack whatever the tank is attacking, you kill, and repeat when tank has switched targets. Tedious, yes, but you get used to it real fast. Pressing the back off button will turn protect me/protect yourself off. I put both the attack and the back off command in the hotkey bar so i can just press them without moving too far off my spells.</DIV>