Anthropomorphic Animal or Animal template?

Pets in space has always been with is. Witness Hawk from Buck Rogers in the later season. RPGs are repeat with cat and wolf aliens. Zebs guide had the humma which were really victims of poor artwork, so they got lambasted as kangaroos in space. However with all the work that's been done developing the humma and with better art they don't feel like a pet in space. So I guess you could start with an animal template to build an alien.