One thing that struck me about Hunger Games was when Katniss watched her own story (IIRC) they'd feminized her - yeah she was shown as stoic and cold at first, but then more sisterly-maternal with Rue and so when Rue died, that was her big Narrative Arc. It seemed more stereotypically 'feminine' than she actually was....although she did enter the games to save Prim, so. OTOH, having to pretend she was in love with Peeta seemed more like a traditional plotline. I didn't see her so much as maternal, personally, as deliberately taking the place of her father -- hunting, defending the family, always planning, &c.


The animal-companion books I liked were Forty Thousand in Gehenna and Deerskin. Are the Dragonriders of Pern out? If that's too rape-heavy, what about Menolly's firelizards? Another good one was Cordwainer Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon," but that was a male human and female cat, IIRC, so probably not what you want. -- It's a bit heavy on the Mary Sue and woo-woo, but uh, I kinda loved Vicky Austin mindbonding or whatever with the dolphins as a twelve-year-old. Heh.

Genderfuckery: I never saw much of the series, but on Star Trek DS-9 there was the Trill who had been a man and then a female. And I don't know if it fits into the 'companion animal' genre exactly, but there's Kalessin and Tehanu in Le Guin's novel, and The Other Wind (talk about dancing with dragons....).