When pet is on “passive” he wanders off and attacks whatever I have targeted if I don’t call him back. Until I actually attack, why does this happen? Thx
I’m not sure I understand what is happening because of your second sentence “Until I actually attack”.
Are you saying that all you have to do is target something and the pet will attack it even though it is on passive, and you haven’t actually attacked the target yourself? And then when you actually attack the target, the pet then goes on passive?
yes, if I target he will attack without me casting anything. doesn’t dash but waltz’s over and starts engaging.
Welcome to being a hunter! 
This random bug has been around since forever, it corrects itself eventually and occasionally comes back kind of like the flu during flu season. Its common after patches and updates, but can occur at any given moment. Two things to do, one, is double check and make sure your pets on passive not just on your pet bar but active in your spell book under the pet tab as well (and make doubly sure your actually using ‘passive’ the sad white seal face. ) Second, try dismissing and recalling your pet, if that doesn’t work dismiss call out a different pet, dismiss that, then call out the pet you want. Regardless of if the problem persists or gets better make sure to submit a bug report. Hope this helps.
Edit: These are tactics that have worked for me. Sometimes the pet bar and spell book don’t correlate. Also, this has lasted for a week at most through my hunter travels when the above didn’t work to correct it, honestly don’t know what causes or ends up eventually fixes it if I had to guess probably the weekly server resets.
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Wow, that’s crazy. I have never encountered this bug. Good to know what to look out for in case I ever do.
This is how it works for me.
First of all, I never have ‘Auto Attack’ toggled ‘On’, at least not any more.
When I have my pet in ‘Passive’ mode, it will stand next to me smiling as I’m torn apart, or for that matter, while it’s torn apart, should it have threat, unless I have told it to attack. I have Pet Attack hot keyed. When I target a Mob and use it, my pet will attack that one mob till something is dead, the Mob, my pet or me, or I tell my pet to do something different.
Should the Mob die, my pet goes back to smiling. If I want anything else I have to tell it, meaning target a Mob and using the Hot key.
I don’t know if my pet will attack while in passive if I, myself am toggled to Auto Attack. Maybe.
Got to the Target Dummies and try the different modes for both you and your pet. (not the Bosses.) Maybe running through the various modes will straighten things out for you.
Edit: I always play MM, I should have said.
Dismissed pet, summoned and dismissed second pet and it worked…for about 2 hours 
Gammera, did the server reset fix it? Or is it still bugging out? Like I said, whether it starts working or not, submit a bug! Also, if its continuing maybe try submitting an actual ticket. Can’t really play hunter without a pet…well at least if your BM you can’t. Good Luck!
I’ve mained bm hunter for the past 3+ years and never encountered this behavior. If my pet is on passive it will not attack unless I enter a /petattack or explicitly activate it’s basic attack on a target and then it will attack once and run back to my side (or the last place I told it to petstay at) unless I keep using petattack commands.
If you are using macros look for any use of:
- /petassist
- /petattack
- /cast Bite/Claw/Smack Basic Attack
petassist will cancel out a petpassive and the others are the trigger for a pet to attack, even if it’s on passive.
Also be careful if are using /petstay because when a pet is done attacking it will automatically go back to where you told it to stay at instead of back to you. This cutie result in the appearance that a pet is going to attack if it was told to stay near a mob. You have to cancel the /petstay with a /petfollow.
Personally I keep my pets on petassist and but i do have an “emergency stop” macro that puts them /petpassive and it’s never failed to recall my pets to me.