Lol I've lost so many pets to this bug and many others that its not even funny. Had this bug a few times where you log in and you get the dreaded 'Your pet has died' message. Though for me its worse than a cheap horse and usually like a level 125 bear. If I had to guess i'd say I've lost at least 14+ pets to bugs. But yeah the way to 'fix' it is to always stable your pet and never ever ever use an alt server. Although we won't see an alt server ever again due to the low pop and idk why SV hasn't just removed them from the main menu yet