The first 10 levels are, by far, the worst of them. I mean you don’t even have a pet or talent points until the very end!
For the most part these levels consist of shooting things from max range, applying serpent sting once you’ve got it, and raptor striking mobs in the face when they get into melee range.
At 10, you get the quest that sends you out to tame 3 different things before you learn to tame pets yourself. Now I distinctly recall that for night elves this involved a wee bit of running around the zone-but for Tauren they’re all like, across the river.
Damn moocows. Anyway. So you do that quest, run to the city to complete the second part of that quest, and then go tame your first pet. If you’re me, you chuckle to yourself and go find a pink flamingo.
I’ve done most of my hunter leveling with a DPS pet, and I reccomend this. Tanking pets can be useful for some situations, and it may be easier these days to keep two pets at your level-but I still reccomend just sticking with one. I solo’d many an elite thing with a cat. 
My poor moocow was very poor until I sold some Malachite on the AH-now she has a comfortable 2g in her bags, and I can do a few important things like…train weapons so she can use her heirlooms, and pick up less-fail gear, and oh, PROFESSIONS!
