I just changed him to a Marsh species and on my pets page it shows him as marsh but on the sidebar he is just common. Is this just the way it is or did i do something wrong? Im a newbie here so please bear with me...

If it hasn't changed by now, just do a hard refresh (ctrl+f5) That's a handy tip for any images that don't like updating (happens to me a lot around the interwebs)

I've moved your board to the Help forum. =)