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 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 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.

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; 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 (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 will not walk through open doors, but they will walk through 1×1 holes. 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

 * 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".
 * You can see your tamed wolf's health by looking at its tail, the higher the tail the more health your wolf has. The lower the tail is, the lower health your wolf has.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * If a wolf is in a downward water current e.g. a waterfall they will not float and if not removed will drown.
 * Wolves can suffocate like a player resulting in death.
 * 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 and it will be lost (if you go back to where you died, it will start following you again)
 * Wolves are rare and hard to find, but if you put down a few torches and wait until night-time, it is more likely a wolf will 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 you can usually find wolves nearby.
 * If you spawn a bunch of Wolves and attack one while the others are near, they will all attack you.