Yes. I posted a detailed answer to this on a thread a long time ago on the Battle Pet forum about precisely this, and the people who post there have added to it and made other threads on their own that are also very helpful.
I’m always happy to help people get started. You are free to look me up ingame, as well.
Scroll down to response #9 on this thread for recommendations about getting started with the Garrison and pet collection in general.
Have a look at this one for my personal opinion about the best starting pets.
As to the rest, I cannot recommend the Battle Pet forum highly enough. You should also look at the third party website called Xu-Fu’s Pet Battle Strategies.
Someone with the requisite TL on the forum can link it, perhaps.