Why won't my 3 pets attack when told to do so ?

Ok..I have my 3 Heroes set as rangers with 3 pets, and quite often, it seems, one or two pets do not attack when commanded, if the heroes owning them are behind me and the mob is in front...I can understand it if they are set to guard and their owners are not being attacked, but when I tell them to attack, they SHOULD attack, and not just hang around in the background. ANet needs to look into this.

The enemys need to be within your pets agro range and you have to have the pet locked on IIRC

Actually, your target needs to be in the pet owner's aggro bubble. That means either yours, or your Ranger hero's.

Kind of disappointing, because it means you can't use a pet as a tank any better than you could before the fancy new controls, because you have to attract the monster's attention before the pet will attack.

I always select and then "target" for my Heroes and Henchies...then I select "Attack" for the pets. All the Heroes should be attacking and so should the pets, and not just standing with their masters behind me. I can get them to attack by moving up to the targeted foe, but that just defeats the object of having an "Attack" button.