Wolf

Wolves are mobs which were introduced in Beta 1.4. Notch had confirmed the addition of these animals upon having breakfast with an idol of his, likely Peter Molyneux. On March 18th, 2011, a video was posted showing a preview of the wolves, which were being made by Jeb.

Taming
To tame a wolf, you have to give it bones until a puff of heart particles appears and it gains a red collar, indicating that the wolf has been tamed. The number of bones required is random. You can have more than one tamed wolf at a time. However, there is a de facto limit of 15 tamed wolves at once due to that being the maximum number of passive mobs (including new wolves) that can spawn naturally. This also means the more tamed wolves a player has the less other passive mobs spawn. At the moment, there is no limit on the number of wolves a player may tame until Mojang decides to create a limit.

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 attack other wolves. Tamed wolves will not attack mobs that you hit with arrows, nor will they attack creepers. Sitting wolves will only attack if their owner is attacked. 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). Wolves are able to eat other food, but only raw/cooked porkchops will heal them. They are unable to climb ladders, but will teleport to you if a large enough gap is created, as long as they are not sitting or trapped in a minecart. On a rare occurrence 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.

Tamed wolves, like wild wolves, will tilt their head when shown something they can eat such as porkchops. They do not take any more bones once tamed.

Wild/Untamed
Wolves spawn in neutral (untamed) packs of 1-8, Wild wolves will randomly attack nearby sheep but will not attack the player unless provoked. A good indicator that there are wild wolves nearby would be wool blocks floating on the ground and you didn't shear any sheep at that time. If you switch to a Bone, wild wolves will tilt their head to the side, indicating interest in the delicacy the player is holding up. Wolves can swim, and will shake water droplets off of their bodies when exiting water or if in the rain. Wolves (regardless of tamed, hostile, or wild) will always stay on the surface when swimming. However if they do get stuck under a block, by ether jumping into the water or getting pushed down, they will drown. They also seem to have a simple pack behavior as they always "hunt" sheep together.

Hostile
Wolves will become hostile towards the player if attacked or there is a sheep in sight. Hostile wolves change in appearance: their eyes become red and the contrast level of their fur texture increases (perhaps meant to indicate hair bristling). Hostile wolves will attack the player as a pack. On multiplayer if one player attacks a wolf, that wolf will be hostile to all players. Hostile wolves will growl when near the player. Although you can usually outrun hostile wolves, and a single wolf only has a  attack strength, it is not recommended that you turn a wolf hostile because they are rather rare and useful once tamed. However, in large groups they can take quite a toll on your health if the whole pack becomes hostile. Once a wild wolf becomes hostile, it can't be tamed. A fishing rod can make a wolf hostile if you try to pull the wolf, as can snowballs.

Tame
When tamed, a wolf's eyes will change to two white pixels and one black pixel, making it look less aggressive. Tame wolves will join into melee combat against the player's current target, with a few exceptions. Wolves will only target one mob at a time and will not switch targets until it is killed. They will never attack creepers, and unfortunately creepers will still attack them. They will also not attack if they are sitting, though they will stand and defend the player if he is attacked. They also stand up if they are attacked by the player. This can be utilized to "call" sitting wolves from a distance by throwing a snowball at them or catching them with a fishing rod. Wolves also constantly bark.

Tame wolves turn their head to the side and beg if the player is holding a cooked or raw porkchop. When told to sit, tamed wolves will perform an idle animation by turning around and looking at their surroundings.

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.

If you manage to hit yourself with an arrow, your tamed wolves will attack you. Because they will be friendly towards you after respawning, it is usually better to let them kill you than to kill them. You can also save and quit, then re-enter.

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). Tamed wolves will whimper if they are low on health. If a wild wolf appears to have low health because of a lowered tail it's health will be restored to 100% after it has been tamed (even if no porkchops were fed to it). Feeding a wolf cooked or raw porkchops will increase its health by hearts. If you make a wolf sit down then feed it cooked or raw porkchops the wolf will stand up when it reaches 100% health. Wolves cannot eat anything other than raw or cooked porkchops. If you try to feed your wolf something other than raw or cooked porkchops, it will not heal the wolf, either making it stand or sit depending on the position it was previously in.

Movement
Tame wolves will follow you but also wander around. They will take any available path to the player, not just walk directly towards like hostile mobs do. They can walk through fully open double doors with ease, but can only walk through a singular door if they are jumping and trying to go through it or being pushed by another mob. Wolves are able to walk through 1x1 holes and can turn around in them. Wolves will attempt to walk through obstacles in order to attack, but will not path around them. Tamed wolves will follow you up ladders only if they are pushed on them.

Wolves often jump around when the player is not moving, and often receive fall damage when near cliffs or even gradual descents. When following the player down a descent, they will often find a safe path to the player rather than a straight path to the player, avoiding fall damage. 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.

Wolves will teleport to you if they get too far behind (which happens often). Teleporting resets the wolf's list of targets, so if a wolf is attacking a mob and teleports it will stop attacking. The distance between you and a wolf before it teleports is roughly a 20x20x10 area. 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 moving minecart will not teleport 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. If a wolf is standing on the edge of its 32-block teleport limit and the player melee attacks a non-creeper mob, then moves away from the wolf very quickly, the wolf will teleport to the player but not attack the mob.

When you right-click on a wolf they will sit and stay in that spot, and will not teleport to the player. 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.

Wolves have a very poor understanding of doors. They will almost never go though a single door, and will have maybe a 50% chance of getting though double doors. The best way around this problem is to build "doggie doors" aka destroying a single block right next to your door, and since wolves have the body of 1x2x1 (1 wide, 2 long, 1 high) they can easily get through.

Drops
Beta
 * Nothing

History

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

Bugs

 * If you save while your wolves are sitting, they may never stand up again. To fix this, get something to damage you (spider, skeleton, zombie, etc.) This can also be fixed by dumping water on them. If they still do not stand, try playing in offline mode.
 * Wolves don't stand up if you are playing in offline mode if the game was saved while in online mode, as well as the reverse instance of saving while offline and playing online. However, doing the above may fix the problem.
 * If you carry your save data in a flash drive, and play on a computer you didn't start the world on, your wolf will not stand up at all.
 * Although wolves are meant to spawn in Taiga and Forest biomes only, they can (sometimes) be found elsewhere.
 * If Minecraft crashes, the number of tamed wolves you have may increase. However, some might also disappear.
 * There is a glitch that when a tamed wolf is inside a minecart (standing), if you go too far away from your wolf, the wolf will teleport to you and it will immediately fly back into the minecart, this will happen repeatedly. This can be fixed by destroying the minecart.
 * If a wolf is swimming, Minecraft will sometimes play the "shaking" sound.
 * 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.
 * Wolves can push you out of your bed, but you will still sleep.
 * In SMP, a player who logs in will see all sitting wolves as standing until they are removed and put back into position.
 * Tamed wolves can teleport inside transparent blocks such as slabs. This can mean they can get stuck, or not follow you.
 * It is possible to push a wolf into a block and therefore suffocate it, done by having two wolves sit, and then pushing one wolf by the other into a solid block. Wolves lose health while in the block, so make sure to be careful!
 * A rare glitch has been known to occur when you save while a tamed wolf is sitting. When you come back to the game and make it stand up, then just right after you've clicked (you need to be very quick), hold up a porkchop, and the wolf will run towards you in sitting position.
 * A tame wolf will attack you if you shoot yourself with an arrow.
 * If a tamed wolf attacks a mob and you right-click on the wolf, it jumps towards the mob in sitting position.
 * Sitting tamed wolves, that were tamed before 1.5_01, that are pushed into water, or that water runs over, will start to jump in place, keeping the sitting stance, and are no longer able to be told to stand, thus continuing to do this until hit, which will cause them to attack you until death on either side. This can be fixed by killing the wolves off and taming new ones.
 * Dumping water on wolves that were tamed before 1.5_01 and left sitting, will cause them to stand up, shake off the water and go back into the sitting position.
 * Wolves can be found in the "Shrubland" biome which can only be found in maps prior to the 1.2 update.
 * Trying to get a wolf to stand up if it was tame before 1.5_01, will cause it to attack you if you dealt it damage, just as a hostile wolf, however it will still have the friendly appearance. it will begin to bounce and attack you. even if you walk away, then walk back you will be dealt damage, even if the wolf is not looking at you.
 * Tamed wolves count against the passive mob limit. In SMP, an individual player with an excessive number of tamed wolves can prevent ALL players on the server from encountering passive mobs regardless of type (cows, chickens, pigs, etc.)
 * Wolves will sometimes get wet under glass while it is raining (this bug may have been fixed)

Trivia

 * When wolves attack a big (2 ) 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.
 * 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 do not trample crops. They will also not make step sounds, or make quieter ones than default.
 * If a hostile mob (besides a creeper) 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. This can be extremely useful if the player is trying to sleep and is attacked in their sleep, as it's more than likely the wolves will be beside the player at the time.
 * If you attack another player on SMP, even if PvP is off, a tamed wolf will attack the opposing player.
 * 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 and Slimes are the only mobs that can be hostile to the player on peaceful mode.
 * Judging by the color of its coat and the biome in which it spawns, the wolf in Minecraft seems to be based on the gray wolf.
 * Hostile wolves respond similarly to zombie pigmen, as attacking one will make the whole pack attack you.
 * Wolves have dull brown markings on their coat. When they are hostile, the markings become darker. When Tamed, the markings become lighter.
 * 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.
 * Wolves can teleport into transparent blocks. Therefore, it is not recommended bringing a wolf underground, or near lava/fire.
 * Water breaks have no effect for falling from high drops for wolves.
 * If you tame multiple wolves, one wolf will always follow you on foot. However, if you move a large distance relatively fast (ie: walking in a straight line across a plain) one or more of the other wolves will idly walk in circles upon becoming a certain distance away, and will teleport if the player moves any farther away.
 * There is a glitch in which a tame sitting wolf will attack its master, still in sitting position. The cause is unknown, but can usually be fixed by logging out and back in, switching to "fast" graphics, or allowing the wolf to kill you and then returning to the death point.
 * Prior to 1.5, wolves continuously made whimpering noises even when they were at full health in SMP because Jeb mistakenly used client-side health instead of synced health.
 * If you use inventory hacks to get more than 64 bones onto the same inventory square, and then use them to tame a wolf, the whole pile is consumed in one go, but the wolf will act like only one bone was given.
 * Wolves can be fed any type of pork.
 * Wolves swim by jumping through the water. This can inadvertently lead to their death by drowning.  If you have any sort of room that is "floating" on water and you try to bring wolves through the open door sometimes they will miss the jump into the room and on the downward half of the jump will wind up under water and trapped under your building and will drown if not teleported or simply pushed out from underneath.