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 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 number 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 cooked or raw pork (which can also be used for luring them) and other foods. They are 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. On a rare occurance tamed wolves can duplicate. Tame wolves will attack you if you get one of your own arrows to hit you. They will attack like this even from the sitting position.

Wild/Untamed
Wolves spawn in neutral (untamed) packs of 1-8, Wild wolves will randomly attack sheep, but will not attack the player. If you hold out a bone or raw porkchop but not give it to them they will tilt their head. 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 one white pixel. 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 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.

Health
A wolf's health status may be determined by checking its tail; the angle between his hind legs and tail indicates its health (100° for 100%, 50° for 50% health). Tame wolves turn their head to the side and beg if the player is holding a cooked or raw pork or a bone. Tamed wolves will whimper if they are low on health. Feeding a wolf pork (both cooked and raw pork, both heals same amount of health) will increase its health, but feeding it bread will cause damage.

Movement
Tame wolves will follow you but also wander around. They will take an available path to the player, not just walk directly towards like hostile mobs do. They can walk through open doors, but only if they are jumping and trying to go trough them or being pushed by another mob. So you can make 1x1 holes and they will walk through them. Wolves will attempt to walk through obstacles in order to attack, but will not path around them.

Wolves will teleport to you if they get too far behind (which happens often). The distance between you and a wolf before it teleports is roughly 32 block. 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 or if you are in a minecart. They will also not teleport to you if you are standing on ice, but they will respawn next to you when you get close enough to land.

Wolves will not avoid walking into lava, cacti, or fire, and so may die even if they're following a player taking a safe route.

When you right-click on a wolf they will sit and stay in that spot. A wolf will stand up if it is in water or when it is hurt (including by being on fire, so it is difficult to keep a wolf on fire from wandering back into the fire).

Wolves cannot travel to the Nether; if the player does, the wolves will remain in the first world until the player returns.

Drops
Beta
 * Nothing

History

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

Trivia

 * If you save while your wolves are sitting, they may never stand up again.
 * When wolves attack a big (2x2x2) slime, they simply push the slime around.
 * Wolves cannot go into the Nether unless hacked in. They behave no differently than if they were in the normal world.
 * Although wolves are meant to spawn in Taiga and Tundra biomes only, they can rarely be found elsewhere.
 * 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".
 * The height of a tamed wolf's tail reflects its health.
 * Wolves do not trample crops. They will also not make step sounds, or make quieter ones than default.
 * If minecraft crashes, the number of tamed wolves you have may increase.
 * Wolves cannot run through doors.
 * If a wolf is swimming, Minecraft will sometimes play the "shaking" sound.
 * 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. This can be fixed by making the wolf sit.
 * 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. This means that they will attack the player if the player injures himself, i.e. through shooting oneself with arrows.
 * 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 PvP is off, a tamed wolf will attack the opposing player.
 * If a wolf is in a downward water current, they will not float, and if not removed will drown.
 * Wolves are the only mob that can be hostile to the player on peaceful mode.
 * If you die, the wolf will not teleport to you, but it can be recovered by returning to the spot of death.
 * Wolves are rare and hard to find, but an area can be created (grass with torches) wherein they can spawn.
 * Judging by the color of it's coat and the biome in which it spawns, the wolf in Minecraft seems to be based on the real world gray wolf.
 * The seed "wolf" will spawn you in a large taiga biome, where wolves are frequently present.
 * Hostile wolves respond similar to zombie pigmen, inasmuch as attacking one will make the pack attack you.
 * Wild wolves have what looks like "dirt" on their fur; when turned hostile, the "dirt" color darkens; when tamed it lightens.
 * If you are feeding wolf with cooked porkchop, both your healths increase.
 * If you attack a mob, then order a wolf that is pathing to attack the mob to sit, the wolf will attack the mob by bouncing toward it while sitting.