You'd be better off as a Beast Bonded Witch since they can grant feats to their familiars. Then your familiar could have the Combat Reflexes and Bodyguard feats. Maybe your DM would let you swap out the starting feats on your Improved Familiar with those, but I'd expect that most DMs would find that an awfully strong trade.
Other than that the wand jockey familiar can provide a lot of what you're looking for with the right wand supply. There are spells to restore your HP, remove conditions, and even get you out of grapples. A wand of Dimension Door can be very useful for escaping grapples as well as for repositioning yourself and allies during combat. Did the dragon breathe on you and then fly out of range? D-Door the Paladin over to beat on it!
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Well, a bog-standard mephit gets DR 5/magic, fast healing (type-dependent), and a 25% chance to 1/day summon another (much more expendible) mephit of the same type. An earth mephit's change size ability can enlarge it to medium, which would help a little with grappling... although a magma mephit's magma form ability is probably the best defence... only where do you find a regular supply of lava to trigger the tyke's fast healing? Steam mephit could work - boiling rain to dissuade attackers, and all you need to trigger its fast healing is a kettle... of course, being NE, a cacodaemon's disease ability and ability to polymorph into various venemous beasties may be enough to just frighten others away?
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Armadillos, Giant Isopods, and Tortoises are pretty bulky. So bulky, in fact, that they give you some of their armor (except Giant Isopods, but they're covered in body armor, so I would expect them to have good AC).
I imagine these would be pretty good for starters, until you can get improved familiar.