Macros don't queue up like normal abilities do. Because of this, if you hit a macro for Whispering Dawn, she'll often Embrace instead and you'll have to smash the macro until she decides to listen. It's better to actually bind the petbar actions themselves, because they WILL queue (if you press Whispering Dawn while she's using Embrace, for example, she'll then use Whispering Dawn immediately after she finishes). I use a Naga, so I have skills 2-4 on the petbar bound to shift numpad 10, 11, 12 (and embrace bound to e).

Now, as to how the Raise macro works. It activates your Swiftcast and then goes down the list attempting to cast Raise. Think of it like an If/Then statement. If target is dead, raise him. If not, go to party member 2 and if he's dead, raise him. If not...so on and so forth. Personally I'd rather just do a simple /ac "Raise" <mo> and be done with it.