Survivability of Aquatic familiars

[Swaoeaeieu]

So in what is currently my 3.5 campaign, the sorceres has an octopus familliar.
being a sea creature, how does it function in adventures on dry land?
it is a pirate campaign on the high seas, but sometimes they go on land for a while.

I know octopi can stay above water a little bit in real life, but how should i rule this in 3.5?

[Necroticplague]

So in what is currently my 3.5 campaign, the sorceres has an octopus familliar.
being a sea creature, how does it function in adventures on dry land?
it is a pirate campaign on the high seas, but sometimes they go on land for a while.

I know octopi can stay above water a little bit in real life, but how should i rule this in 3.5?

Well, the Swim skill is pretty clear on how long you can hold your breath.

You can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to twice your Constitution score, but only if you do nothing other than take move actions or free actions. If you take a standard action or a full-round action (such as making an attack), the remainder of the duration for which you can hold your breath is reduced by 1 round. (Effectively, a character in combat can hold his or her breath only half as long as normal.) After that period of time, you must make a DC 10 Constitution check every round to continue holding your breath. Each round, the DC for that check increases by 1. If you fail the Constitution check, you begin to drown.
And Suffocation says something that's near-identical

A character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check in order to continue holding her breath. The save must be repeated each round, with the DC increasing by +1 for each previous success.

When the character fails one of these Constitution checks, she begins to suffocate. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to -1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she suffocates.
Assuming you replace 'air' with 'water', since the Octopus has the Aquatic subtype, this means the Octopus can hold it's breath and move around on land for 22 rounds (a little over two minutes) of just walking around. The octopus has a 20 foot land speed, so it can move as normal (albeit, slower than it's 30 foot swim speed).

Depending on what casters you have, the Air Breathing spell can make it able to breath air for a considerable amount of time (2 hours/CL).

[Telonius]

There is a sidebar on page 168 of Stormwrack that you might be interested in; terrestrial adaptation for aquatic creatures. It suggests giving a land speed and "Hold Breath" as an (Ex) ability.

[Gildedragon]

One could also use a belt of many pockets and stash the octopus there
OR
give the octopus a neckace of perpetual attendance, put octopus in a fishbowl, have the unseen servant carry bowl around

[Celestia]

Real life octopuses can survive between 20 to 40 minutes depending on climate, temperature, and humidity. Thus, significantly longer than the game's suffocation rules allow them to, but probably not enough for your purposes. So, I'd still recommend one of the methods mentioned by the other posters.

[Thurbane]

Maybe just swap out one of the low-level familiar abilities (Alertness?) for the Amphibious template (ignoring the usual requisites)...

[Jowgen]

Why not this?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9d/4b/0b/9d4b0bf7e81153f5ad6e22705bd56572.jpg