If you go barbarian, you can rage and then wildshape to be a really tanky bear but you won’t be able to concentrate on any spells while raging Cleric is probably better for a caster druid, and Light Cleric has a great reaction at 1st level to impose disadvantage on an attacker. Ranger has good options for proficiencies and resistances at 1st level. If you go 3 levels into ranger, one of the subclasses can give you an animal companion