Wolf

A wolf is a neutral mob that can be tamed and used to assist in combat with most hostile mobs.

## Spawning

Wolves spawn naturally above grass blocks, dirt, coarse dirt, snow blocks or podzol in forests, taigas, groves, old growth taigas, and snowy taigas, along with all variants of these biomes (with the exception of flower forests), in packs of 4, where 10% spawn as pups.

Naturally-spawned wolves are untamed and become hostile if attacked by the player.

## Drops

Adult wolves drop 1–3 experience orbs when killed by a player or tamed wolf. A tamed wolf that is killed by its owner still drops experience.

Upon successful breeding, 1–7 are dropped.

Like other baby animals, killing a pup yields no experience.

## Behavior and appearance

Wolves exhibit three different states depending on how the user interacts with them:

* **Untamed** wolves have gray fur, a drooping tail, and their eyes consist of a white pixel and a black pixel for the pupil (on each side). They are neutral toward the player and hostile toward sheep, rabbits, foxes, baby turtles, and skeletons. They avoid llamas, although wolves may attack a llama that spits on them. They do not despawn, even if they are in an unloaded chunk, or 32 blocks away from the player.
* **Angry** wolves are characterized by their constant growling and fearsome appearance. Wild wolves become hostile when they are either attacked by a player or mob, if not killed in one hit‌, or when they see a mob they want to eat. Their tail is held out straight, their eyes become blood red, their mouth is raised in a slight snarl, and they have angry eyebrows. Angry wolves are hostile only to mobs that attack them, or to the mobs they are hunting. They can see attackers even if they are under the invisibility effect, but they cannot track the attacker down, if they get out of their render distance, or the attacker was able to unload the chunk where the wolves were. Angry wolves cannot be leashed, but a wild wolf may become angry while it is still leashed without dropping the lead.
* **Tamed** wolves have friendlier looking eyes. They have a default red collar around their neck, which can be dyed using any color of dye on the wolf. This also includes other wolves owned by other player, where any player can dye that wolf's collar. Pressing use on the wolf makes it sit and remain in place and not follow the player around. Tamed wolves that are not sitting attack players or mobs that their owner attacks, or those that injure their owner unless the target has the same owner or is on the same team. They do not attack creepers, ghasts, tamed horses or tamed cats, regardless of owner. Standing tamed wolves attack only skeletons and their variants without provocation. Tamed wolves are always passive to the player, even if the player hits them or kills a tamed wolf on the same team.

A wolf becomes hostile to a player or other mob that attacks it unless the attacker is the wolf's owner, or is otherwise on the same team, or if killed in one hit‌. It also causes wild wolves and standing tamed wolves in a 33×33×21 cuboid centered on the attacked wolf to become hostile to the attacker, allowing coordination for attacks and team hunts (only in wild wolves).

Any tamed wolf attacked by a player/mob causes all standing wolves on that team to attack that player/mob who attacked the tamed wolf.

Skeletons and their variants, foxes, baby turtles and passive rabbits actively avoid both tamed and wild wolves. Killer rabbits‌ attack wolves actively. Sheep ignore wolves, but flee when attacked by one. Sheep ignore tamed wolves but also do not flee from them.

When a player within 8 blocks holds meat or bones near a wolf, the wolf tilts its head as if to 'beg' for the food for 2 to 4 seconds.

The behavior of pups is the same as tamed wolves. Pups have larger heads, similar to other animal babies.

Wolves are 0.85‌ blocks tall and pups are 0.425‌ blocks tall.

The textures of the wolves are tinted dark gray once submerged in water.

In Peaceful difficulty, hostile wolves deal no damage to the player.

### Movement

Standing tamed wolves wander randomly when near their owner, but follow if more than 10 blocks away and teleport to a nearby free block (if any) if more than 12 blocks away. Besides making travel easier, teleportation can be used to rescue them from lava, water or pits, as they immediately teleport to a safe area.

* Wolves can be told to "sit" by pressing use on them and made to stand again with another press of use.
	+ A wolf automatically sits when first tamed.
	+ While sitting, they do not follow the player. However, if their owner fights a mob near them, they are still likely to join the fight. When the fight is over, they go back to sitting (if in water, they do not sit until they are on dry land, telling the wolf to sit makes it stand). They sit at their new location instead of returning to wherever they were previously.
	+ Wolves stand up and follow the player if it is pushed into water or injured while sitting.
* Wolves can either attack (within 16 blocks) or flee (within 24 blocks) from llamas. The wolves' speed is increased by 50% whereas they flee.
* Wolves find paths to their targets if attacking within 16 blocks, even in difficult terrain. They also navigate along the edges of cliffs and occasionally fall far enough to take damage if they leap.
* Wolves attack their targets running about at the player's walking speed and by leaping at them in exactly the same manner as spiders, but cause no damage while in midair. Tamed wolves attack any animal the player starts to attack. They also can navigate and turn around in 1×1 horizontal tunnels.
* After emerging from water, a wolf shakes the water off their fur. This is represented by an animation and water particles.

### Teleportation

Tamed wolves teleport to their owner, if they are more than 12 blocks away, with a few caveats.

* Teleporting resets the focus of a tamed wolf, so if a wolf is attacking a mob and teleports beside a player, it resumes following the player, as its tracking has been reset.
* 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. This happens when the wolf considers transparent blocks, such as glass, or half-blocks, to be open.
* It cannot teleport when it is sitting.

An angry or untamed wolf does **not** teleport.

Tamed wolves do not teleport if:

* The wolf has been ordered to sit.
	+ Exception: The wolf is likely to teleport if it is injured while sitting (it no longer sits after teleporting). An example is if a wolf that is sitting is hit by another player, it teleports to their owner.
	+ Exception: If the wolf is in a loaded chunk, and the player gets damaged by a mob, there's a chance for the wolf to stop sitting, causing them to teleport if the player is far away, then attacking the player's attacker and sitting down afterward.
* The wolf is chasing after a skeleton. This can lead to wolves standing and jumping in one place, such as over a cavern if a skeleton is near. The wolf teleports once the skeleton is killed.
* The wolf is in a minecart or a boat.
* The wolf has been attached to a fence post with a lead.
* The wolf is in an unloaded chunk.
* None of the blocks on the edge of a 5×1×5 region centered on the player are transparent blocks with a solid block below and another transparent block above.
* The player is in another dimension; a wolf remains in its current dimension until the player returns. However, wolves can be transported to another dimension by pushing them into the portal first.
* The owner is not directly touching the ground (e.g. using elytra, swimming, flying, in a boat).

Wolf teleportation is completely silent; this is not an oversight.

### Wargs

Wargs share a very similar appearance to Wolves. They are essentially scaled up Wolves with a darker palette. It is quite easy to mistake a Warg for a Wolf and vice-versa.

## Taming, health and feeding

A wolf can be tamed by feeding it bones. Once tamed, a wolf does not accept any more bones. Note that the number of bones required is random – each bone has a 1⁄3 chance of taming the wolf. If the wolf is tamed, it receives a red collar and sits if not swimming. There is no limit to the number of wolves the player can tame. A wolf's tail rises and lowers 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 that the wolf has. Tamed wolves whine when they have low health (below 10). Wild wolves have a maximum health of 8, so their tails always remain significantly lower than those of tamed wolves. Tamed wolves can be healed by feeding them any sort of meat other than fish;‌ listed below, this restores as much of the wolf's health as the same food would restore hunger points when eaten by the player.‌

The wolf cannot be tamed if it is hostile or already tamed.

Wolves that are tamed by the same player can accidentally attack each other while attacking another mob, leading to a fight.

Wolves do not get food poisoning, so they can freely eat rotten flesh, pufferfish or raw chicken. Feeding a tamed wolf that is already at full health usually starts the "love mode" animation.

A tamed wolf's necklace/collar color can be changed by using a dye on the wolf.

### Breeding

Tamed wolves at full health can be bred with any type of meat, including rotten flesh and raw chicken without causing the hunger status effect. There is a 5-minute cooldown for breeding, during which the wolf does not accept meat.

The growth of pups can be slowly accelerated using any type of meat. Each use takes 10% off the remaining time to grow up. Unlike healing, rabbit stew or any type of fish cannot be used for breeding or speeding up growth.

Breeding two wolves that recognize someone else as an owner causes the pup to also be owned by the owner of the original two wolves. If two tamed wolves with different owners are bred, the owner of the pup is the owner of the older parent wolf.

If the player attacks an untamed wolf and then feeds it, hearts appear as when entering breeding mode, although the wolf does not breed and remains aggressive toward the player.

## See Also

* Mobs
* Warg