It's a shame this didn't work out because I love animal companion stories too and would have been so into finding a good new one.

Also, I don't know if I've mentioned these before but there's this set of books called Chronicles of Ancient Darkness all about a boy and his wolf. They're set in the Stoneage so I don't know if they'll be too hist-fic for your taste, but they have magic and the first one has a really creepy demon bear too.