HI!
I had a cat until lvl 12, then abandoned it and got a bear. However, the pet trainer in Darnassus is not offering to teach my pet any rank 1 or 2 skills I taught my cat, only red options for Rank 3 skills but I bear doesn’t have the pre-requisites.
Am I missing something?
There’s an ability called beast training in your general tab, you teach your pet abilities learned from other pets from there.
https ://www.wow-petopia.com/classic/abilities.php
This place has all the pet ability locations, bookmark it like i did lol it’s been a big help
I copied and pasted here my answer from WoW Classic forums:
When you complete the taming quest at level 10, it would reward you the “Beast Training” ability which has a “sling shot” icon.
You have to press this sling shot button everytime you have a new pet. It opens up the skills that you could teach your pet including GROWL. Teach your pet GROWL as all new pets you would tame has no GROWL.
You would learn more pet skills from 2 sources: pet trainer and Beasts from the wild. Pet trainer teaches you Natural Armor, Stamina at rank 1, 2, etc. The skill Dive, Dash, Cower, Furious Howl can be learned from the Beasts from the wild. There is a Hunter skill called “Beast Lore” available at level 24 that allows you to see what skill the Beast has when you target them.
To learn the skill the Beast has. You have to tame them, feed them and after using the pet for a while, you would learn its skills.
I will give you an example. Lets say i have this favorite pet, an Owl but it has no Dive skill. I see a Buzzard in Arathi Highland which has Dive skill. I will tame the Buzzard, feed and use it. After a while, my hunter would learn the Dive skill from the pet. Then, i could abandon the Buzzard pet, summon back to my owl. Click the Beast Training button. And teach my owl the new Dive skill.
Most pets we tame has no or less skill. To upgrade their skill, we need to train them either from the skill we learned from pet trainer or from the skill we learned from other beasts we tamed.
Buy a stable slot or two. Place your main pet into the stable. Now go and tame a temporary pet that has the ability you want. Use that ability with the temp pet until you learn it. Now abandon the temp pet and go train your main pet. Repeat as needed.
Does it tell you when you learn the new ability or is there a certain amount of time you have to use the new pet?
On the Chat Interface, it would tell you when you learn it.
One time, I learned the spell the moment my pet engaged the target. And another time, I killed 15 wolves before I learned Bite Rank 4 from my pet.
Make sure the ability you want to learn is being used by the pet. You wont learn it if the Pet doesnt use the ability. Either you manually Click it or have it on auto-cast.
You would see on your Chat interface when you learn it. Looks like this.
You have learned a new spell: Bite.
gotcha…ty for your time/help
i am taming pets that are supposed to give bite like savannah huntress and any pet i tame doesnt offer bite. not in the sling shot. not at pet trainer… all im able to get is claw. is this a bug
You (your temp pet) have to use it to learn it. You don’t get it automatically, and it doesn’t always come quickly either. I’ve learned abilities on the first go, and I have had abilities take an hour of use to learn.
Only certain beasts will naturally know the ability and per Petopia,
Savannah Huntress is not one of them.
PS for some reason I can’t posts links here but the link has been provided above by Reimmi.
Savannah Huntress doesnt have Bite skill.
Not all Beasts in the wild has Bite skill.
These are the Beasts that could have Bite skill: Bats, Bears, Boars, Carrion Birds, Cats, Crocolisks, Dragonhawks, Gorillas, Hyenas, Nether Rays, Raptors, Ravagers, Serpents, Spiders, Tallstriders, Turtles, Warp Stalkers, Windserpents, Wolves.
Not every beast I listed have Bite skill. You have to find and hunt them.
Sample:
Webwood Venomfang in Teldrassil has Bite rank 1.
Prowler in Elwynn Forest has Bite rank 2.
Ghostpaw Runner in Ashenvale has Bite rank 3.
I have a Cat pet… level 40 now. She now has Dash, Claw and Bite. I got her Dash rank 2 skill from Hyena in Tanaris. I got her Claw rank 6 from a Scorpid in Tanaris. I got her Bite rank 6 from a Turtle on Dustwallow Marsh. When I tame King Bangalash at level 43, it will have the same skills as my current Cat.
OMFG!!! THANK YOU!!! I had no idea this button existed… You are a life saver 
Beast training… beeen looking for it for days