Tiger. Any tiger would do. White is cool, but orange is just original. that covers the first topic because there is nothing else I'd want. A Tyrannosaurs would be unreasonable because I'm sure the winter climate here would kill it pretty quick (assuming dinosaurs still had some reptile like features).
Mythological would likely be a dragon, but that's overdone. I'm going to go with a flying monkey like in Wizard of oz. An army of those bastards would be pretty awesome.
EDIT: Also, the dragon things from Avatar would be acceptable because they were also pretty damn awesome.