How do I make an NPC my pet?

[thepoetwarrior]

I want to put NPC's in some zones that a user can hail them, and make them their pet for that zone as a charmed mob and/or pet. These will be non-aggro NPC's at zoneline with level and stats appropriate for the current zone.

An easy way that I dont want, is to put Dire Charm (actually, Spell ID 2761 Dominating Gaze) onto an item as a clickie to perminately charm an NPC.

So Im trying to use quest code. The stuff I've tried already are

quest::selfcast($mobid,2761);
quest::castspell($mobid,2761);
$client->UseDiscipline(2761,$mobid);
$client->castspell($mobid,2761);
$mob->SetOwnerID($userid);
$npc->SetOwnerID($userid);

Im running out of ideas. I tried running bots before, but users were using 5 bots per box in all the zones. I'd like to limit which zones, and to 1 pet/bot/npc per user. Figured it could be done in quest code, but its just not working. Any ideas how it can be done? I've check all the QuestObjects in the wiki's and the tutorial, etc. Please help.