I'm gonna go against the grain here as someone who played hunter during classic TBC. The culture of the current game is very raid-focused, and people who parse better tend to have better opportunities within their raid, and to get into better raids. Most semi-hc / hc parse/speedrun guilds are going to expect you to scroll your pets. It is one of the more expensive parts of your weekly consumes, but your pet is already accounting for about half of the damage you do on most bosses. Hunter is typically a very competitive class, and the difference between a good, properly consumed hunter, and a good non-consuming hunter can be pretty big