Wolf

Wolves are new mobs introduced in Beta 1.4. Notch had confirmed the addition of these animals upon having breakfast with Peter Molyneux. On March 18th, 2011, a video was posted showing a preview of wolves, which were being made by Jeb. Wolves will spawn in forest and taiga biomes. Wolves may also be considered the "pet dogs" as previously mentioned by Notch. Wild wolves are usually neutral. As of now, they are not known to drop anything. At the moment you can also have as many wolves as you want until Mojang comes up with a way to limit the amount you can have tamed. Wolves do spawn on Multiplayer servers, and they continuously make whimpering noises even when they are at full health.

Taming
They are said to be rather rare, but they will not despawn once tamed. To tame a wolf, you have to give it bones until a puff of heart particles appears and it gains a red collar, which indicates that the wolf has been tamed. The number of bones required is random. You can tame more than one wolf.

Once given enough bones, they will become friendly. They will now protect you, follow you around, and will attack mobs that you have attacked in melee. Tamed wolves will not attack mobs that you hit with arrows, nor will they attack creepers. Wolves will also not attack mobs if they are sitting. A wolf's tail will rise and lower depending on its health, and it can be restored with raw pork (which can also be used for luring them) and other foods. They will be unable to climb ladders, but will teleport to you if you create a large distance between yourself and them as long as they are not sitting or trapped in a minecart.

Wild/Untamed
Wolves spawn in neutral (untamed) packs of 1-7, Wild wolves will randomly attack passive mobs, but will not attack the player. Wolves can swim, and will shake water droplets off of their bodies when exiting water. They cannot dive underwater, however.

Hostile
Wolves will become hostile towards the player if attacked. A Hostile wolf has red eyes, while a neutral wolf has eyes consisting of one black pixel and two white pixels. Hostile wolves will attack the player as a pack. On multiplayer if somebody attacks a wolf that wolf will be hostile to all players. Note: Once you turn a wild wolf hostile, they can't be tamed.

Tame
When tamed, the wolf's eyes will change to two white pixels and one black pixel, making it look less aggressive. A tame wolf will not attack the player, even if the player attacks it, although a rare glitch can occur if you save while the dog is in sitting position, then come back and hit it. They will then jump toward you in the sitting animation and attack you. Any other wolves who were told to sit before saving will also not be able to stand up again. Tame wolves are desirable because they will join into melee combat against the player's current target, with a few exceptions. Wolves will not attack what you attack if they are already attacking something, and they will never attack creepers. They will also not attack if they are sitting. Wolves will attempt to walk through obstacles in order to attack, but will not path around them.

Wolves will not travel through inactive portals on server, but can be pushed through them. Furthermore, they do not appear to be able to travel to the Nether. When arriving through a portal back to the world, a wolf will still eventually teleport near the player. Wolves will teleport to you if they get too far behind if not right clicked. It is possible for tame wolves to teleport to an inaccessible location (such as under ice) and may die as a result. A Wolf in a minecart will have trouble teleporting to you, and a wolf will not teleport to you if you are swimming in water that is deeper than 1 block.

A wolf's health status may be determined by checking its tail; a tail in the air indicates high or full health while a tail pointing towards the ground means lower health. Tame wolves turn their head to the side and beg if the player is holding a raw pork or a bone. Tamed wolves will whimper if they are low on health. Feeding a wolf pork will increase its health, but feeding it bread will cause damage.

When you right-click on a wolf they will sit and stay put. A wolf will not sit if it is in water.

Wolves do spawn in "Peaceful" Mode and will still attack if provoked. When changing the difficulty to "Peaceful," tamed wolves are not removed from the game.

When you hit yourself with an arrow, a tame wolf will attack you. Tame wolves that are attacking you can still pounce while they are sitting.

History

 * Wolves were released in Beta 1.4, on March 31st, 2011.

Trivia

 * Wolves are the first official tameable mob in Minecraft.
 * Jeb has said that wolves may have color variations, but he "would have to run that through notch".
 * Wolves, along with spiders(Starting in 1.4), will not trample crops. They will also not make step sounds, or make quieter ones than default.
 * There's a glitch where if your Minecraft crashes and you have 2 tamed wolves, at least 3 more will appear
 * If a wolf is swimming, Minecraft will sometimes play the "shaking" sound.
 * If a wolf is sitting and pushed into water, it will automatically stand up.
 * Wolves appear to be the only NPCs with idle animations.
 * If you tame a wolf while it's in the middle of jumping, the wolf will go into a "sitting" pose but continue to bounce up and down indefinitely (you can break it of that cycle by right-clicking to cancel the "sit" command). This doesn't work when telling already-tame wolves to sit while they're jumping.
 * Wolves will not avoid walking into lava or cacti, and so may die.
 * If a hostile mob attacks a player, the Wolf will react and attack the mob to defend the player, even if the Wolf was told to sit. (Even if the hostile is the player they will attack the player {shooting arrows straight up so they will hit the player})
 * Wolves can push you out of your bed, but you will still sleep.
 * There is a bug in SMP where a player who logs in will see all sitting wolves as standing until they are removed and put back into position.
 * If you attack another player on SMP, even if player-vs-player is off, if you have a tame wolf, it will attack that player until they are dead.