Just got the cute parrot since it’s on discount and finally decided to start a pirate themed toon.
Is there a way to make a macro to target the pet and whistle at it so it sits on my shoulder?
/tar [Cap'n Crackers]
/whistle
This doesn’t target the pet. 
Change the target line to
/targetexact Cap'n Crackers
sadly does not work
So I tested in-game, and you’re correct it doesn’t work. I googled a bit and discovered that companion pets cannot be targeted by name.
Apparently, it could be abused, which is unfortunate.
how could it be abused? now I’m curious as heck!
I don’t know how reliable this is, but apparently “clever” addons would summon a companion upon certain battle conditions, then check to see if the companion could be targeted. This would allow them to bypass some of the security limitations in the API.
Wow, that is absurd. And also, quite a while ago. Couldn’t they just fix the issue, instead of banning the targetting completely? sads.
Thank you though, for clearing that up for me!