Animal Companions, Weapon Finesse and Trip

[Graeme]

I've seen several threads on the messageboards with builds for animal companions. One common build for Rangers is that for a small cat, and those build often give the small cat Weapon Finesse and Agile Maneuvers at levels 1 and 2.

I've just been looking at the revised FAQs and saw the following:

Weapon Finesse: If I have this feat, can I apply my Dex bonus to my combat maneuver checks instead of my Strength bonus?

This strongly implies that a small cat does not need both feats to be effective - it only needs Weapon Finesse. That is, the trip attempt it gets from its Weapon Finessed bite would use DEX, not STR for the CMB.

Is this correct? If so, that frees up the small cat to take a different feat (like Power Attack or Toughness) at level 2, and reignites the Small Cat vs Wolf wars for Ranger builds....

[Kazumetsa Raijin]

Yes, if you have Weapon Finesse and are using a Light Weapon of some sort to make the Trip attempt with, then you may use your Dex bonus in place of Str for the CMB of that maneuver. Same goes for Sunder and Disarm.

Agile Maneuvers would be needed for feats like Stand Still, or maneuvers such as bull rush and grapple - If you wanted to use Dex in place of Str again.

I'm not 100% sure on the Cat's Bite as that is a Natural weapon. To me, it would qualify as a Light weapon and would therefore be eligible for the Weapon Finesse Dex based CMB