Improve Animal Transport/Teleporting/Behavior

I've had a lot of serious issues with transporting or traveling with animals. I think the teleportation of tamed pets could be improved. For example, if I have to go across a large water source with a dog I tamed, it always gets stuck in the water and stops teleporting. Similarly with teleporting, sometimes even just running will result in the pet falling too far behind and not teleporting. Another issue, even after the lead update, is the behavior of horses, etc, when following with a lead. They seem to try going uphill while I'm heading downhill, and downhill while I'm heading uphill, getting stuck on blocks; it's generally a more complicated and time consuming experience than it has any reason to be. Another little tweak I'd love to see is animals avoiding danger- I feel like a lot of my pets end up dying in crazy ways, especially if I let them follow. It's troubling because I feel like if they don't follow me ever, there's not a huge point to having them, but if I do have them follow, they're bound to die :/ Lastly, it would even be awesome to be able to use a lead on most mobs; like if I wanted to create my own village and move villagers into it more easily.