I've been burning through 10s of thousands of gold on my quest from lvl25 to lvl26, all on potions and feeding Ribbit for his abilities.
When farming for my gold to do this levelling up (and buying better stuff) I would do lots of easy solo runs that didn't require potions and would rotate my pets.
I think the feeding situation is OK as it is, but I with they would flipping well run a bit faster! I'm getting fed up of getting to a mob and my pet would turn up several seconds later.