Wolf

Health points	Wild: 8 () Tamed: 20 ( × 10)
Attack strength	Wild: Easy: 3 () Normal: 4 () Hard: 6 () Tamed: 4 ()
Size	Adult: Height: 0.85 Blocks Width: 0.6 Blocks Baby: Height: 0.425 Blocks Width: 0.3 Blocks
Spawn	On grass, in forest and taiga biomes and their variations
First appearances	See History
Drops	None
Experience	Kill Adult: 1–3 Breeding: 1–7
Sounds	Bark Die Growl Hurt Panting Shake Step Whine
Internal ID	JE: 95 BE: 14
Entity ID	wolf

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"Dog" redirects here. For the music track, see Minecraft - Volume Alpha.

	“	Jens spent most of the week working on a new mob; the wolf! You can tame it and order it to follow you around, and it’ll work as a pet. They’re fairly rare, but they won’t despawn once you’ve tamed them.	„
		— Notch^[1]

Wolves are dog-like neutral mobs that can be tamed.

1 Spawning
- 1.1 Java Edition & Legacy Console Edition
- 1.2 Bedrock Edition
2 Drops
3 Behavior and appearance
- 3.1 Movement
- 3.2 Teleportation
4 Taming, health and feeding
- 4.1 Breeding
5 Data values
- 5.1 Collar color
6 Achievements
7 Advancements
8 Videos
9 History
10 Issues
11 Trivia
12 Gallery
13 References

Spawning[edit]

Java Edition & Legacy Console Edition[edit]

Wolves spawn naturally in normal forests, taigas, giant tree taigas and snowy taigas, along with all variants of these biomes (with the exception of flower forests), in packs of up to 4.

Bedrock Edition[edit]

Wolves only spawn naturally in taiga biomes and snowy taiga biomes, but not in giant tree taiga biomes. 16.6% will be babies. They require light level of 7 or above to spawn.

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

Drops[edit]

Wolves drop 3 experience when killed by a player or another tamed wolf.

Behavior and appearance[edit]

A tamed wolf "begging" the player.

Three tamed wolves following the player.

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

Wild wolves have gray fur, a drooping tail, and their eyes consist of two white pixels and two black pupils. They are neutral towards the player and will attack rabbits, foxes, skeletons and their variants, sheep, and baby turtles without provocation. However, they will run away when spat upon by llamas, depending on the strength of the llama. They will not despawn.

Angry wolves can be distinguished by their constant growling and fearsome appearance. Their tail becomes straight, their eyes become red and the contrast level of the fur increases, revealing dark patches of bristling hair and a mouth line raised in a slight snarl. Angry wolves are only hostile towards mobs that attack them. They can see attackers even if they are invisible.

Tamed wolves can be distinguished from wild or hostile wolves from their eyes since they change to look less aggressive. They have a red collar around their neck, which can be dyed using any color of dye on the wolf. Pressing use on the wolf makes it sit and remain in place while the player is free to move around. Tamed wolves will attack players or mobs that injure their owner, unless the target has the same owner or is on the same team. Standing wolves will attack players or mobs that are attacked by their owner, unless the target has the same owner or is on the same team. They will also not attack creepers, ghasts, or tamed horses regardless of owner. Standing tamed wolves will attack skeletons and their variants without provocation, but not sheep, baby turtles or passive rabbits.

A wolf will become hostile towards a player or other mob that attacks it, unless the attacker is the wolf's owner or is otherwise on the same team, and will also cause nearby wild wolves and standing tamed wolves (in a 33×33×21 cuboid centered on the attacked wolf) to become hostile towards the attacker.

Skeletons and their variants, foxes, baby turtles and passive rabbits will actively avoid wolves, killer rabbits will attack them and sheep will ignore them beyond their normal running after being damaged.

In the Legacy Console Edition, the player can have 1-8 wolves‌^{[Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U editions only]} or 1-16 wolves‌^{[Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch editions only]}.

In other editions, the player can have as many wolves as they want.

Wolves are 0.85 blocks tall, and baby wolves are 0.425 blocks tall. The textures of the wolves will be tinted dark gray once submerged.

Movement[edit]

Standing tamed wolves will wander randomly when near their owner, but will follow if more than 10 blocks away and will teleport to a nearby free block (if any) if more than 12 blocks away. Besides making travel easier, teleporting can be used to rescue them from lava, water or pits. Wolves will appear to shake off water after swimming.

Wolves can be told to "sit" by pressing use on them, and made to stand again with another press of use.
- When originally tamed, they will start off sitting.
- While sitting, they will 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 will go back to sitting (if in water, they won't sit until they are on dry land). They will sit at their new location instead of returning to wherever they were previously.
- Wolves will stand up and follow the player if pushed into water or injured while sitting.
Wolves will find paths to their targets if attacking, even in craters. They will also navigate along the edges of cliffs, but will occasionally take drops long enough to damage them.
Wolves attack their targets running at player's walking speed and by leaping at them in exactly the same manner as spiders, but differently cause no damage while in midair. Tamed wolves will attack an animal the player starts to attack. They also can navigate and turn around in 1 × 1 horizontal tunnels.
After emerging from the water, a wolf will shake the water off their fur.

Tamed wolves will appear to shiver when it is raining and they are not covered by a roof.

Teleportation[edit]

Tamed wolves will 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 will resume following the player.
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.

A wolf will not teleport:

If the wolf has been ordered to sit.^[2]
- Exception: The wolf is likely to teleport if it is injured while sitting (it will no longer be sitting after it teleports). An example is if a wolf that is sitting is hit by another player, it will teleport to their owner.
- Exception: If the wolf is in a loaded chunk, and the player gets damaged by a mob, there's a chance the wolf will get up from sitting, causing them to teleport if the player is far away, then attacking the player's attacker and sitting down afterwards.
If 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 will teleport once the skeleton is killed.
If the wolf is in a minecart.
If the wolf has been attached to a fence post with a lead.
If the wolf is in an unloaded chunk.
If none of the blocks on the edge of a 5×5×1 region centered on the player are transparent blocks with a solid block below and another transparent block above.
If the player is in another dimension; a wolf will remain in its current dimension until the player returns. However, wolves can be transported to another dimension by pushing them into the portal first.
If the owner is not directly touching the ground (e.g. using elytra, flying, in a boat).

Taming, health and feeding[edit]

Many tamed wolves sitting.

A group of begging wolves.

A wolf can be tamed by feeding it bones. Once tamed, a wolf will not accept any more bones. Note that the number of bones required is random – each bone has a ⅓ chance of taming the wolf.^[3] If the wolf is tamed, it will get a red collar and (if not swimming) the wolf will sit down. Currently, there is no limit^[4] to the number of wolves the player can tame. A wolf's tail will rise and lower 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. When tamed wolves have low health (below 10 ()), they will whine as an indicator. Wild wolves have a maximum health of 8 (), so their tails will 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 will restore as much of the wolf's health as the same food would restore hunger points when eaten by the player.

Food	Heals	Notes
Raw Chicken Cooked Chicken	1 ()	Raw Chicken can be fed to wolves without making them get the Hunger status effect.
Raw Porkchop Cooked Porkchop	2 ()
Raw Beef Steak	2 ()
Rotten Flesh	2 ()	Can be fed to wolves without making them get the Hunger status effect.
Raw Mutton Cooked Mutton	2 ()
Raw Rabbit Cooked Rabbit	2 ()

In Bedrock Edition, raw or cooked cod/salmon can also be used.

Puppies have only 8 () health when born, but their maximum health is the same as an adult's - 20 ( × 10), and they can be raised to full health by feeding them any meat listed above or using splash potions of healing. Note that wolves do not get food poisoning, so they can freely eat rotten flesh or raw chicken. Feeding a tamed wolf which is already at full health will usually start the "love mode" animation.

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

Breeding[edit]

A puppy sitting.

Wolves can be bred, if tamed and at full health, through the use of any type of meat listed above.

The growth of baby wolves can be slowly accelerated using any type of meat. Each use takes 10% off the remaining time to grow up.

The behavior of puppies is the same as tamed wolves. The appearance of the pups differs, however, as they have large heads, similar to the offspring of pigs, cows, sheep, chickens and so on.

Breeding two wolves that recognize someone else as an owner will cause the puppy to also be owned by the owner of the original two wolves. If two tamed wolves with different owners are bred, the puppy will be owned by the owner of the wolf bred last.

Data values[edit]

Collar color

Main article: Wolf/DV

[edit]

Achievements[edit]

Main article: Achievements

Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Availability				Xbox points earned	Trophy type (PS)
Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Xbox	PS	Bedrock	Nintendo	Xbox points earned	Trophy type (PS)
	Leader Of The Pack	Befriend five Wolves.	This does not have to be in a single game, so multiple games or reloading old saves does count toward this achievement.	Xbox One	Yes	Yes	Wii U, Switch	20G	Silver
	Leader Of The Pack	Befriend five Wolves.		Xbox 360	Yes	Alt	Wii U, Switch	30G	Silver

Advancements[edit]

Main article: Advancements

Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Internal ID
The Parrots and the Bats	Breed two animals together	Husbandry	—	`minecraft:husbandry/breed_an_animal`
Best Friends Forever	Tame an animal	Husbandry	—	`minecraft:husbandry/tame_an_animal`
Two by Two	Breed all the animals!	The Parrots and the Bats	Breed pairs of each of these 11 mobs. Other tamable mobs, if any, are ignored for the advancement.^{[until JE 1.14]} Breed pairs of each of these 14 mobs. Other tamable mobs, if any, are ignored for the advancement.‌^{[upcoming: JE 1.14]}	`minecraft:husbandry/bred_all_animals`

Videos[edit]

Wolves when they were in development uploaded by Jeb as shown below.

History[edit]

Java Edition Beta
March 2, 2011				Notch confirmed the addition of wolves after having breakfast with an idol of his (likely Peter Molyneux).
March 18, 2011				Jeb posted a video preview of the wolves he was working on.
1.4				Added wolves.
1.4				A glitch was encountered where if the player's wolf was not sitting when the player logged off, it would become wild and the player would have to tame it again. This problem was fixed a couple of updates after wolves were first introduced.
1.5				Prior to this update, wolves would continuously made whimpering noises, even when they were at full health in multiplayer because Jeb accidentally used client-side health instead of synced health.^[5] Wolves will now no longer do this.
1.6			?	Players hurting themselves with arrows will now no longer cause all of their tamed wolves to attack them.
1.8			?	Just like farm animals, wolves will now no longer despawn, and they will now spawn rarely.
1.8			?	Most wolves will now generate with the world.
Java Edition
1.1			?	Wolves will now only despawn when hostile; passive and tamed wolves will not.
1.2.1			12w03a	Prior to this update, breeding wolves with wheat caused a bug which made them sit forever. This has now been fixed.
1.2.1			12w03a	Wolves can now be bred through the use of any type of meat such as chicken (raw or cooked), pork (raw or cooked), beef (raw or cooked), and rotten flesh if tamed and at full health.
1.4.2			12w34a	Tamed wolves can now have dye-able collars.^[6]
1.4.5			?	Added baby untamed wolves, which can only be spawned in creative using a spawn egg.
1.6.1			?	Passive untamed wolves will now despawn, but only after at least two minutes.
1.6.2			?	Wolves, along with zombies, creepers and skeletons, will now no longer turn hostile towards the player when attacked in creative mode.
1.8			14w02a	Baby wolves growth can now be accelerated using raw or cooked chicken, raw or cooked porkchop, raw or cooked beef and rotten flesh.
			14w05b	Tamed wolf collars are now no longer visible when they have the Invisibility effect.
			14w10a	Wolves (both wild and tamed) will now chase and attack both regular skeletons and wither skeletons.
			14w10a	Tamed wolves named using a name tag will now display death messages to the owner.
			14w18a	A tamed wolf's collar color will now default to orange rather than red.^[7]
1.9			15w38a	All tamed wolves – even unnamed ones – will now display death messages to their owner.
			15w39a	Wolves are now slightly taller (0.85 blocks tall rather than 0.8, with babies 0.425 blocks tall rather than 0.4).
			15w46a	A tamed wolf's collar color will now once again default to red.
1.10			16w21a	Wild wolves will now no longer despawn.
1.11			16w32a	Changed entity ID from `Wolf` to `wolf`.
1.13			18w07a	Wild wolves will now attack baby turtles.
Upcoming Java Edition
1.14			19w07a	Wild wolves will now attack foxes.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.9.0			build 1	Added wolves.
			build 2	Wolves will now have sounds.
			build 9	Wolves will now have interact buttons at the bottom of the screen to tame and sit them.
0.11.0			build 1	Wolves' collars are now dyeable.
0.12.1			build 11	Tamed wolves will now attack targets when hit with a bow.
0.13.0			build 1	Wolves now naturally attack skeletons and rabbits.
0.14.0			build 1	Baby zombie jockeys will now check for nearby adult wolves to mount prior to attacking the player, villager, or golem.
0.15.0			build 1	Baby husks can now mount wolves.
0.15.0			build 1	Wolves now attack strays.
0.16.0			build 4	Wolves will now damage the player in peaceful difficulty.^[verify]
Pocket Edition
1.1.0			alpha 1.1.0.0	Wolves will now run away from llamas.
Bedrock Edition
1.5.0			beta 1.5.0.4	Wild wolves will now attack baby turtles.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	Added wolves.
TU14	CU1	1.04	Patch 1	Tamed wolves can now have dyeable collars.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3	A tamed wolf's collar color will now default to orange rather than red.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3	The growth of baby wolves can now be accelerated using raw or cooked chicken, raw or cooked porkchop, raw or cooked beef and rotten flesh.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0				Added wolves.

Issues[edit]

Issues relating to "Wolf", "Wolves", or "Dog" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia[edit]

Wolves were the first tameable mob added to Minecraft (added in Beta 1.4).
If a tamed wolf is named with a name tag, its name is shown in the chat when killed.
Wolves can teleport into transparent blocks.
If the player attacks a wolf and then give the aggressive wolf food that it can eat (like rotten flesh), hearts will appear as animals do when entering breeding mode, however the wolf will not breed and will continue attacking the player.
In singleplayer, if the player punches a wild wolf and leave its field of vision, it will stare at them and not move at all. Going back into its range will make it continue pursuing the player.
Aggressive wolves have the path-finding of most mobs, such as going around pits, but may sometimes try to jump to get a player that's separated by a 1-2 block gap. In two block gaps, they won't make the jump and fall, but may manage to damage the player.
If the player kills their own tamed wolves, their wolves will still drop experience.
Untamed wolves use their hostile appearance when they are attacking sheep, skeletons or rabbits. They will change back once the targeted mob dies or gets out of their range.
Attacking a wild wolf on peaceful won't damage the player, but they assume the hostile appearance and try to push them, similar to a baby slime.
A wild baby wolf's head grows significantly when attacked.
If the player attacks a wolf, but then moves a large distance away (e.g. 70 blocks), the wolf will still appear hostile, but will exhibit neutral behavior.
Wolves that are tamed by the same player can accidentally attack each other while attacking another mob, leading to a fight.
Wolves will periodically attack and kill cows.

Gallery[edit]

Official wolf artwork.
The first screenshot of wolves.^[8]
The second screenshot of wolves. Here, Jeb implemented sitting and has a new texture.^[9]
A wolf shaking off water droplets after a swim.
A pack of wolves hunting a cow on command.
A wolf stuck inside a tree after teleporting.
A hostile wolf shaking off water droplets after a swim.
Wolves having a darker texture when they are swimming or when it's raining.
A pack of wolves locking a sheep under a tree (bug).
Tamed wolves with dyed collars.
A wild baby wolf that can only be spawned by a wolf spawn egg.
An adult wolf fighting a baby wolf.
A wolf killing a sheep.
Three tamed wolves teleported within a grass path in a taiga village. Only their ears can be seen.
Two wolves sitting in a boat.
A hostile wolf looking and running at the player.
A burning tamed wolf.