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Familiars
A familiar is an animal chosen by a spellcaster to aid him in his study of magic. It retains the appearance, Hit Dice, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, , and feats of the normal animal it once was, but is now a magical beast for the purpose of effects that depend on its type. Only a normal, unmodified animal may become a familiar. An animal companion cannot also function as a familiar.
A familiar grants special abilities to its master, as given on the table below. These special abilities apply only when the master and familiar are within 1 mile of each other.
Levels of different classes that are entitled to familiars stack for the purpose of determining any familiar abilities that depend on the master’s level.
If a familiar is dismissed, lost, or dies, it can be replaced 1 week later through a specialized ritual that costs 200 gp per wizard level. The ritual takes 8 hours to complete.
Improved Familiar
This feat allows you to acquire a powerful familiar, but only when you could normally acquire a new familiar.
Prerequisites: Ability to acquire a new familiar, compatible alignment, sufficiently high level (see below).
Benefit: When choosing a familiar, the creatures listed here are also available to you. You may choose a familiar with an alignment up to one step away on each alignment axis (lawful through chaotic, good through evil).
Improved familiars otherwise use the rules for regular familiars, with two exceptions: if the creature’s type is something other than animal, its type does not change; and improved familiars do not gain the ability to speak with other creatures of their kind (although many of them already have the ability to communicate).
When the Faerie Dragon becomes your familiar, its type (dragon) does not change and it follows the normal familiar rules for skills. It retains all of its previous skills, and as per normal familiar rules, you would then add Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, Perception, Stealth, and Swim to Class Skills. You don't lose anything, they overlap.
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To add to what Ryze Kuja said:
Skills: For each skill in which either the master or the familiar has ranks, use either the normal skill ranks for an animal of that type or the master's skill ranks, whichever is better. In either case, the familiar uses its own ability modifiers. Regardless of a familiar's total skill modifiers, some skills may remain beyond the familiar's ability to use. Familiars treat Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, Perception, Stealth, and Swim as class skills.
Skill points equal to 2 + Int modifier (minimum 1) per Hit Die. The following are class skills for animals: Acrobatics, Climb, Fly, Perception, Stealth, and Swim.
Note the difference:
- the animal type gives a specific set of class skills, like it was a class.- being a familiar gives the creature a set of skills that are treated as class skills, like it was a template that adds them to the creature.
It never says that those skills are the only class skill the familiar can have.
For a familiar that is an animal the two list overlap, but for familiars with a different type the two sets of "class" skills can be different and the final list can be wider.