They changed this between Legion and BfA. As I recall it was an attempt at making us switch pets for different purposes rather than sticking to a select few. Plus they wanted pet choice to matter more, just not in terms of damage/throughput. Hence why all pets now deal the same base damage.
Sadly, in many ways it just forces players/makes players feel forced to pick pets they don’t want to use just because of the right combo of spec+pet type(family abilities).
And btw, no, you cannot tame 3 versions of the same pet for different specs, because they will all come with the same specialization (Ferocity/Tenacity/Cunning). Pet families are locked into their respective specs.
Edit: Also, dno if this is more what you were after…
If you meant when you yourself switch spec and the abilities on your pet action bar disappear, you can find them in the pet tab in your spellbook. Just drag them out from there onto the pet bar again.
Omg… For 3 years I have been taming the same pet multiple times, since the pet spells disappeared from the pet bar when I changed to a spec that “didn’t catch that particular pet”
You are right, all the pet spells and abilities are still there under the pet section in the spell book. I’ll just go ahead and drag them back onto the pet bar.
Your Edit was what I was looking for hehe. Thank you so much