They most likely went with a dagger for COR because it has an extremely limited supply of ilvl119 main-hand (non-ranged) weapons. The way the augments were coded (augments only affect the weapon itself,) it would have been impossible to do an animator anyway (and would've been only 1x even if it were possible,) AND even if it were possible, you would've gotten the uniform paths A/B with only a unique path C anyway.
TBH, I feel like the current selection of animators is pretty solid. The buffs/stats you get from them are significant and they give a fair amount of control over the pet's behavior. Be grateful PUP is not getting the BST treatment.. BST has no Pet:Lvl+ options, no blanket stat-vomit (it's actually fairly difficult to get any meaningful attribute bonuses for pets,) and our pets' levels are tied to main-hand weapon ilvl which can complicate things when we regularly change weapons every ~3sec on average.