My iPhone isn't lagging when I play, but it's a 7 with lots of extra memory (not sure how much that matters, though, since I'm not a tech-y person).
I've finally got my little Alien!
He's at L2 right now, working to find the items he needs to level himself up. Bullseye should be able to help, but nope. I was sitting on 16M magic, so I spent some of it getting potions while also trading in lots of decorations I was using to make my park pretty.
And Bagheera.... not yet. This one is going to take a long, long time. I have 12 perches and 10 ear hats as of today. So about halfway there after many days of searching.