The link is Extraordinary, not Supernatural, and explicit in what it does. If someone successfully disguised themselves as you, they could make Handle Animal checks as normal to control your companion. They wouldn't get the bonus of the Link ability, though, because they don't know your animal as well as you.
I thought this was going to be about scent.
If the animal has a good nose or other sense beyond the human, it should be. I wouldn't think a Doppleganger would do well with dogs or wolves for example. It would smell wrong and smell is very important to canines. Of course a supernatural disguise ability could include scent I suppose but that's not the way I would do it. Or, the Doppelganger could replace the animal companion... that's an evil thought...
Perfect Copy (Su) When a doppelganger uses change shape, it can assume the appearance of specific individuals.
-Doesn't make you smell like them though. Probably not going to fool fido.
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Does it make you sound like them?
Would only fool deaf people if that wasn't the case.
I wonder whether the word "appearance" solely means "visual" appearance?
One possible definition from the Online Dictionary gives it as:
a. The outward or phenomenal manifestation of things
b. the world as revealed by the senses, as opposed to its real nature
Richard
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You can use google to find examples of people using the terms:
visual appearance
aural appearance
olfactory appearance
tactile appearance
and even
gustatory appearance
Richard
P.S. This philosopher from MIT coins the term "perceptual appearance", which I rather like :-)
http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/basicqualities.pdf
Considering that smell is much more than a matter of physical similarity I would say that it is not reproduced by the ability.
Consider the difficulties of trying to reproduce the smell of a ranger would constantly smokes a specific brand of cigar, has habitually maintained a certain diet and uses a specific brand of soap when washing himself. Even if the doppelganger picked up on the cigar bit, how would he know to reproduce the harder to detect scents of diet and soap residue. An animal companion with scent would likely pick up on the difference.
Of course, any doppelganger worth his weight would be able to bluff his way out of that situation.
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I take your point, but this is a supernatural ability.
We are visually, after all, pretty complicated, so if magic can produce a perfect visual copy why shouldn't it be able to do so with respect to the other senses?
Furthermore, if the ranger changes his brand of soap or gives up smoking, he would still largely speaking smell the same - at least, I can't imagine an animal companion rejecting him for this reason.
Richard
I kind of like the idea of the animal companion smelling the difference between his master and the doppleganger. Thematically, it can foreshadow something amiss without giving it away, and you see this a lot in fiction and media. But that's just me. I usually go with what's thematic and ultimately, what's fun. I tend to not blindside players often and try to give enough clues to realize something is in fact, amiss.
Well, the Bestiary entry specifically says they can take on the shape of others perfectly. Nothing else. It does talk about more powerful Doppelgangers though (Bestiary, pg. 89):
"Rumors persist of even more powerful doppelgangers capable of not only shifting their appearance, but also skills, memories, and even the extraordinary and supernatural abilities of creatures whose forms they choose to mimic. These doppelgangers’ change shape ability functions like the spell polymorph rather than alter self."
In short it sounds like regular Doppelgangers are limited to just the shape while more powerful ones can reach into their victims and imitate more of them. Interesting.