Wolf

 Wolves  are mobs that appear to be based on the arctic wolf that can be allied with the player once tamed by being fed bones with the "use" key. They will shake themselves dry when they reach land after a swim or if drenched by rain, or otherwise come in contact with water. Wolves are 1 block in height, 2 in length, and 1 in width (1 x 2 x 1).

Like most mobs, wolves are vulnerable to drowning, suffocation, falling, contact with cacti or lava, and will take damage from being set on fire or coming in contact with attacking hostile mobs.

Spawning
Wolves will spawn in all difficulty levels and only in forest and taiga biomes. Wolves can also be spawned in Creative mode with a wolf spawn egg. Adult wolves spawn untamed and baby wolves spawn tamed. However, if baby wolves are spawned in creative by using the spawn egg on an adult wolf, they will spawn wild, and furthermore, can become hostile if attacked.

Behavior and appearance


Depending on if and how they are interacted with, wolves can be in one of three states: wild (untamed), hostile, or tamed. Tamed wolves can be bred to create a baby wolf using Porkchops (raw or cooked), raw beef, steak, raw chicken, cooked chicken, and rotten flesh.

All wolves will appear to 'scare' an ocelot, but it's actually the normal "coming too close" behavior they display with players. Tamed wolves do not appear to scare, or fight with, tamed ocelots (cats).


 * Wild wolves have white fur, and their eyes consist of one white pixel, black pupils, and a drooping tail. They are neutral towards the player and spawn untamed in packs of 1-8, occasionally coordinating attacks on nearby sheep while roaming around. Randomly dropped blocks of wool (especially in a Pine Forest biome) can be good indicator of their presence. Untamed wolves will tilt their head to the side to indicate their interest in a bone or meat held by a nearby player. Untamed wolves will become hostile toward the player if the player attacks them.


 * Hostile wolves can be distinguished by their constant growling and appearance: the tail becomes straight, the eyes become red and the contrast level of the fur increases, revealing dark patches of bristling hair and a mouth line raised in a slight snarl. They will coordinate their attacks on a player that has injured a wild wolf in the pack, and will not revert from this state once aggravated, unless the player dies and respawns. If a wolf is hit and becomes hostile, but then takes fall damage, it will stay hostile, but not attack. Tamed wolves cannot become aggravated. Aggravated wolves will attack any and all players in range.


 * Tame wolves (often called dogs) can be distinguished from wild or hostile wolves from their eyes as they change to look less aggressive (two white pixels and one black pixel), as well as a red collar (if not dyed) around their neck. The collar can be dyed if the player uses any color of dye on the wolf. When told to sit (right-clicking), tamed wolves will remain in place while the player is free to move around. Sitting wolves will never despawn, no matter how far away the player wanders, and not if the player leaves the game or goes to sleep. They also will resume following the player when he/she returns and tells them to stand up again. Friendly wolves will also bark occasionally at any nearby players. When standing, these wolves will engage any mob the player hits with melee attacks (the notable exceptions being Creepers and wolves owned by the same Player). If a player attacks wild wolves, tame wolves will kill the wild ones.

Movement and hazards
In general, tamed wolves (dogs) follow the player in a wandering manner (as opposed to walking directly towards him/her) to avoid falling, but will continue to jump and move around even if the player stands still.
 * Wolves can be placed in a passive sit mode by right clicking on them once tamed.
 * Wolves (wild, hostile, and tamed) now have AI, so they can find paths to their targets if attacking, even in craters. They will also navigate along the edges of cliffs in the same sense, or if they are following the player. However, they can still take damage from gradual descents.
 * Wolves will stand up and follow the player if pushed into water or injured while sitting.
 * Wolves can navigate and turn around in 1 x 1 horizontal tunnels.
 * Tamed wolves can be put on a "leash" by right-clicking with a fishing rod, but with the introduction of actual leashes in snapshot 13w16a this has become obsolete.
 * They are not sufficiently wary of lava or flame, and are prone to set themselves on fire by wandering too close.
 * Like other pets, they can activate pressure plates, perhaps letting monsters in or animals out of a pressure-plate door or gate, or even setting off a trap.
 * They can still block the player's attempt to click on something, get in the way of their mining, or even intercept (and block) a player's attack against some other monster.
 * Tamed wolves will attack any animal the player start to attack, so be careful not to slap your cattle if you do not want it to be killed by your wolves after that. The baby chicken are an exception (maybe because you almost have to hurt them when you throw eggs very fast).
 * Formerly, they could bump and push the player (even pushing them over ledges), or block the player's movement. However, in recent updates, they can no longer push the player, who can freely move through them without unit collision.  In tight corridors, the player may still take a point or two of suffocation damage when "running over" a wolf.

Teleportation
Tamed wolves will teleport to the player if a large enough gap (roughly a 20 x 20 x 10 block area) is created between them and the player with a few exceptions.


 * Teleporting resets the focus of a tamed wolf, so if a wolf is attacking a mob and teleports beside a player, it will resume following the player.
 * It is possible for tamed wolves to teleport to an inaccessible location (e.g. under ice) and be injured or die of suffocation as a result.

A wolf will not teleport:
 * If the wolf has been ordered to sit
 * Exception: The wolf is likely to teleport if it is injured while sitting (it will no longer be sitting after it teleports). A dramatic example is if a wolf sitting outside is struck by lightning, in which case they will be on fire when they appear.
 * If the wolf is in a minecart
 * If the player is swimming or riding a boat in deep water (but they will teleport as the player approaches land or shallow water)
 * If there are only transparent blocks (like ice, glass) around the player
 * If the player enters a portal and travels to the Nether or the End, instead remaining in the Overworld until the player returns. However, wolves can be transported to the Nether or End by pushing them into the portal first.
 * If the player is flying a certain distance above the land

Combat
Tamed wolves (when standing) always follow the player around the Overworld, teleporting to him/her if they become too distant. They will attack any non-environmental entities that injure the player - even idle sitting wolves will stand up and descend upon an attacker to defend the player when he/she is hit by someone else or a hostile mob. If the player orders a wolf to attack an untamed member of its own pack, it will kill it, but turn hostile towards the player. However, it will not attack them. When the player hits a mob or another player with melee attacks (non-arrow), tamed wolves will engage in combat with it, focusing on one target at a time and switching to another only when the first has been killed.

Huge armies of wolves may be strong; however, due to unit collision between a wolf and another wolf, they are limited in how many can attack a mob at once. It is not recommended to have greater than 8 wolves out at once, due to creepers being able to kill or injure most of them. Wolves are best at attacking hostile mobs, Zombies and Skeletons, but Skeletons can still shoot the wolf, causing damage. They have a bit more trouble with the Spider and are sometimes hurt by the combat. However, Cave Spiders do not seem to cause poisoning to wolves. They are effective against Zombie Pigman, however they will require some player assistance. Wolves will attack Endermen though this is likely to result in the wolf being hurt -- so ensure that before you use your wolves to fight endermen you accumulate lots of Rotten Flesh. This means that the wolves can hit the Endermen with melee while you feed them when the wolves are about to die. Note that tamed wolves have little or no effect on Creepers, Slimes and Magma cubes.

On a PvP server, wolves are sometimes used in battles. The difficulty of killing the wolves or evading them depends on the situation.

If another player's wolf attacks you without the player's consent, and you can easily get back to that location, just let it kill you, then get your items back. Killing the wolf would cause a loss for the other player. It is possible to escape an attacking wolf by just running/sprinting away. After some time, the player should be able to escape the range of a wolf. This could be recommended if there is more than one wolf in the area, and/or if you have little weapon power.

If a tamed wolf kills a mob, it will drop experience orbs for the player to take, as any mob killed by the player.

Taming, health and feeding

 * For a more thorough tutorial about taming wolves, go to: Tutorials/Wolves.



First, find an untamed wolf or wolf pack. With 2.5 times the health and double the attack power, tamed wolves are 5 times stronger than wild ones, and can kill 4 at a time, possibly without dying. Each individual wolf can be tamed by feeding (right-clicking) it bones. Once tamed, a wolf will not accept any more bones. Note that the number of bones required is random - each bone has a 1 in 3 chance of taming the wolf, and up to 12 bones need to be used to ensure the wolf is successfully tamed. If the wolf is also tamed, it will get a red collar and (if not swimming) the wolf will sit down. Currently, there is no limit to the number of wolves the player can tame.

A wolf's tail will rise and lower depending on its health. The exact health of an individual wolf can be determined by measuring the angle between its hind legs and tail. The angle indicates the percentage of health the wolf has (100 degrees for 100%, or 10 hearts; 90 degrees for 90%, etc.). For a perfectly healthy puppy, 6 raw chicken, 5 raw pork, 4 raw beef, 3 zombie flesh or 2 of any cooked meat is required. Since wild wolves have a maximum health of 4 hearts, their tails will always remain significantly lower than those of tamed wolves.

Puppies will not gain 100% health when born, instead, it can be restored by right-clicking a wolf with any type of meat. Rotten flesh will not induce the food poisoning effect on a wolf, and splash potions of healing or regeneration can be thrown at wolves to heal them. Attempting to feed a tamed wolf when its health is full will start the "love mode" animation.

You can change a tamed wolf's collar color by right clicking with a dye. As the collars are now a different layer, when affected by Invisibility potion effect, the collar will still be visible.

Breeding


Wolves can be bred through the use of any type of meat such as chicken (raw or cooked), pork (raw or cooked), beef (raw or cooked), and rotten flesh if tamed and at full health. Once you have two or more wolves, breeding them is a much better way to increase your wolf army's population than taming more wolves, but keep in mind that wolves are born at low health and should be fed when they're born. It's best to feed wolves rotten flesh, because you don't have many uses for it and the wolves are okay with eating it.

The behavior of puppies is the same as tamed wolves, with few exceptions. They do not attack as well as wolves due to their size. Their appearance is the same, except that their body is smaller (not their head). This is the same for all baby animals except for the ocelot kittens and baby Villagers. Their bark (could also be considered as a whine) is high pitched. Puppies spawn at a low health but have the same maximum health as a normal wolf. When two different player's wolves are bred together the owner of the puppy is selected at random. Be careful when swimming because if a puppy is following and the water is deep it will drown because it can't swim.

Issues

 * - Wolves and Ocelots spawn rapidly near player
 * - tamed wolfs glitching
 * - Tamed wolves and cats despawn.
 * - Wolves shaking fur dry while dying
 * - Wolfs appearing to be standing up while sitting
 * - Wolves have big difficulty fighting Slimes and Magma Cubes

Trivia

 * Angry wolves can be distracted with sheep.
 * Wolves are the first official tameable mob in Minecraft, the second being the ocelots.
 * Wolves do not trample crops (but they can destroy it by jumping on it), and they do not make step sounds.
 * If the player attacks another player on SMP, even if PvP is off, a tamed wolf will attack the opposing player. They will continue to attack even if made to sit by the wolf's owner. Similarly, if a player attacks a tamed wolf that isn't their own, then the wolf will attack.
 * If a wolf is in a downward water current, they will not float and, if not removed, will drown.
 * Wolves, Iron Golems and the Ender Dragon are the only mobs that can be hostile to the player on peaceful mode.
 * Wolves can teleport into transparent blocks. Therefore, it is not recommended to bring a wolf underground or near lava/fire.
 * Water brakes have no effect on wolves falling from high positions.
 * Wolves, silverfish, ocelots, Villagers and bats are currently the only five mobs that only drop XP when killed.
 * Wolves will turn black when wet (rain, water etc.). Upon finding a dry location (shelter, land, etc.) they will shake themselves dry.
 * If the player creates a new world and tames a wolf, then logs in under a different username, the wolf will not obey the player.
 * If the player attacks another player or mob while the wolf is in follow mode, even if it is enclosed then freed after, it will attack that mob or player. Whereas if it is sitting and the player attacks a mob or player, it won’t attack them, even if the player let them start walking again.
 * Wolves have two unused sound files called "howl1" and "howl2". They seem to be a sort of wolf/werewolf howling loudly. It is unknown if they will ever be used.
 * Wolves will attack the player if the player hits itself.
 * Wolves are one of the four mobs that can see you through transparent blocks, such as glass. The other three are the Zombie, the Slime, and the Spider.
 * If you attack a wolf and then give the aggressive wolf food that it can eat (like Rotten Flesh), hearts will appear as animals do when entering breeding mode. The wolf will not breed and continue attacking the player.
 * Aggressive wolves can see you even if you are invisible. This may be on purpose, since dogs have a keen sense of smell, and it could be using it to detect the player.
 * If you throw a Potion of Invisibility on a tamed wolf the collar will still appear, as the collar is considered "armor", just like wool on a sheep.
 * Wolves are the first mob added that can teleport.
 * In singleplayer, if you punch a wild wolf and leave its field of vision, it will stare at you and not move at all. Going back into its range will make it continue pursuing you.
 * Aggresive wolves have the path-finding of most mobs, such as going around pits, but may sometimes try to jump to get a player thats separated by a 1-2 block gap. In two block gaps, they won't make the jump and fall, but may manage to damage the player.
 * In the Xbox 360 edition of minecraft, Wolves cannot enter the Nether.
 * Killing your own tamed wolves will still make them drop experience.