How to find wolves in minecraft

Any ideas on how to find them easily, or get them to spawn in survival without any usage of cheats? Most advice I'm seeing involves a whole new seed, which is kind of useless for my current world I'm playing on.

*Side note: my world has a rather expansive Taiga biome sprawling in every direction. I'm shocked I haven't found one. Hence asking for advice.

Wolves? What wolves? I have only spotted ONE wolf in playing minecraft for the past two weeks!

Can anyone tell me where I can find one? Is there some sort of biome they prefer? Are the spawning rules for wolves any different from regular critters?

This article is about the mob in Minecraft. For the mob in Minecraft Dungeons, see MCD:Wolf. For the mob variant in Minecraft Earth, see MCE:Skeleton Wolf.

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

Animal

Easy: 3
Normal: 4
Hard: 6

In Java Edition:
Adult:Height: 0.85 BlocksWidth: 0.6 Blocks

Pup:

In Bedrock Edition:

Pup:

Width: 0.3 Blocks

0.3

Grove
Snowy Taiga
Old Growth Pine Taiga
Old Growth Spruce Taiga
Taiga
Forest

• Bone
• Meat
• Fish ‌[BE only]
• Rabbit Stew ‌[BE only]
• Dye
• Lead

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[]

A tamed wolf "begging" the player for food.

Three tamed wolves following the player around.

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[JE only], 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[JE only]. 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).

In Java Edition, 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[JE only] 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[JE only] or 0.8‌[BE only] blocks tall and pups are 0.425‌[JE only] or 0.4‌[BE only] 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[]

A tamed wolf shaking off water.

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.[1]
  • 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).
• The wolf is in any body of water, it may not teleport to the owner.‌[Bedrock Edition only]

Wolf teleportation is completely silent; this is not an oversight.[2]

Taming, health and feeding[]

Many tamed wolves sitting.

A group of begging wolves.

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.[3] If the wolf is tamed, it receives a red collar and, in Java Edition, sits if not swimming. There is no limit[4] 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;‌[Bedrock Edition only] listed below, this restores as much of the wolf's health as the same food would restore hunger points when eaten by the player.‌[Bedrock Edition only]

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[]

A pup sitting.

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.

Sounds[]

Wolves use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

1. ↑ a b MC-177522
2. ↑ a b MC-177094

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Entity data[]

Wolves have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

Java Edition:

Main article: Entity format

• Entity data
  • Additional fields for mobs that can become angry
  • Additional fields for mobs that can be tamed by players
  • Additional fields for mobs that can breed
  • Tags common to all entities
  • Tags common to all mobs
  •  CollarColor: The color of the wolf's collar. Present even for wild wolves (but does not render); default value is 14.

[edit]

Bedrock Edition:

Achievements[]

Advancements[]

Videos[]

History[]

This page would benefit from the addition of isometric renders. 

Please remove this notice once you've added suitable isometric renders to the article.
The specific instructions are:

• 12w34a tamed wolf (all collars) textures.
• 18w43a tamed pups.
• 19w45a sitting wolf legs changes.

March 2, 2011	Notch confirmed the addition of wolves after having breakfast with an idol of his (likely Peter Molyneux).
March 15, 2011	Jeb posted a first image of wolves.
March 16, 2011	Jeb posted a second image of wolves, with updated texture and model, showing one of them in a sitting pose.
March 18, 2011	Jeb posted a video of the wolves in action. Normal texture has been changed and tamed version of wolves now has special texture.
Java Edition Beta
1.4	Added wolves.
Wolves can be tamed. When wolves are hit by the player or the player's tamed wolves, they become angry. A glitch is encountered where if the player's wolf isn't sitting when the player logs off, it becomes wild and the player must tame it again. This problem was fixed a couple of updates after wolves were first introduced.[when?]
1.5	Wolves no longer continuously make whimpering noises in multiplayer even when at full health. This originally happened because Jeb accidentally used client-side health instead of synced health.[5]
1.6	Test Build 3	Players hurting themselves with arrows no longer causes all of their tamed wolves to attack them.
1.8	Pre-release	Just like farm animals, wolves no longer despawn, and they now spawn rarely.
Most wolves now generate with the world.
Unknown
?	Wolves now appear angry when attacking sheep.
Java Edition
1.1	?	Wolves now despawn only when hostile; passive and tamed wolves do not.
1.2.1	12w03a	Prior to this update, breeding wolves with wheat caused a bug that made them sit forever. This has been fixed.
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.
12w06a	Wolves no longer spin in circles on non-full-height blocks.
1.4.2	12w34a	Tamed wolves can now have dye-able collars.[6]
1.4.4	pre	Added untamed pups, which can be spawned only in creative using a spawn egg.
1.6.1	?	Passive untamed wolves now despawn, but only after at least two minutes.
1.6.2	release	Wolves, along with zombies, creepers, and skeletons, no longer turn hostile to the player when attacked in creative mode.[is this the correct version?]
1.8	14w02a	Pups 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 no longer visible when they have the Invisibility effect.
14w10a	Wolves (both wild and tamed) now chase and attack both regular skeletons and wither skeletons.
Tamed wolves named using a name tag now display death messages to the owner.
14w18a	A tamed wolf's collar color now defaults to orange rather than red.[7]
1.9	15w31a	Untamed wolves no longer beg when a player holds bones nearby, while tamed wolves now do.
15w38a	All tamed wolves – even unnamed ones – 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 now once again defaults to red.
1.10	16w21a	Wild wolves no longer despawn.
1.11	16w32a	The entity ID of wolves has been changed from Wolf to wolf.
1.13	18w07a	Wild wolves now attack baby turtles.
1.14	18w43a	The textures of wolves and pups has been changed.
The textures of tamed wolves have been changed.
The texture of tamed pups has been changed.
The textures of angry wolves and pups have been changed.
19w07a	Wild wolves now attack foxes.
1.15	19w37a	Now have a 5% chance to spawn as babies.
1.16.2	Pre-release 3	Wolves are now properly rendered in dark places.
1.18	21w44a	Wolves can now spawn on snow blocks.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.9.0	build 1	Added wolves and pups.
Wolves can be tamed and tamed wolves can be bred to make baby tamed pups.
When wolves and pups are hit by the player or the player's tamed wolves, they become angry.
build 2	Wolves now have sounds.
build 9	Wolves now have interact buttons at the bottom of the screen to tame and sit them.
v0.11.0	build 1	Wolves' collars are now dyeable.
v0.12.1	build 11	Tamed wolves now attack targets when hit with a bow.
v0.13.0	build 1	Wolves now naturally attack skeletons and rabbits.
v0.14.0	build 1	Baby zombie jockeys now check for nearby adult wolves to mount prior to attacking the player, villager, or golem.
v0.15.0	build 1	Baby husks can now mount wolves.
Wolves now attack strays.
v0.16.0	build 4	Wolves now damage the player in peaceful difficulty.[verify]
Pocket Edition
1.1.0	alpha 1.1.0.0	Wolves now run away from llamas.
Bedrock Edition
1.5.0	beta 1.5.0.4	Wild wolves now attack baby turtles.
1.10.0	beta 1.10.0.3	The textures of wolves and pups has been changed.
The textures of tamed wolves have been changed.
The texture of tamed pups has been changed.
The textures of angry wolves and pups have been changed.
1.13.0	beta 1.13.0.1	Wild wolves now attack foxes.
1.16.0	beta 1.15.0.51	Wolves now spawn in forests, wooded hills and giant tree taigas.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added wolves and pups.
Wolves can be tamed and tamed wolves can be bred to make tamed pups.
When wolves and pups are hit by the player or the player's tamed wolves, they become angry.
TU14	1.04	Tamed wolves can now have dyeable collars.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3	A tamed wolf's collar color now defaults to orange rather than red.
The growth of pups 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 and pups.
Wolves can be tamed and tamed wolves can be bred to make tamed pups.
When wolves and pups are hit by the player or the player's tamed wolves, they become angry.

• 

  The first screenshot of wolves.[8]

• 

  The second screenshot of wolves. Here, Jeb implemented sitting and has a new texture.[9]

Issues[]

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

Trivia[]

• 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.
• In singleplayer, if the player punches a wild wolf and leaves its field of vision, it stares at the player and does not move at all. Going back into its range causes it to continue pursuing the player.
• A hostile wolf can path-find like most mobs, but may sometimes try to jump across a 1–2 block gap to get to a player. A wolf cannot scale a two-block gap, so it falls, but may still manage to damage the player.
• Untamed wolves use their hostile appearance when they are attacking sheep, skeletons, foxes, baby turtles or rabbits. They change back once the targeted mob dies or gets out of their range.
• Attacking a wild wolf in Peaceful Mode aggravates the wolf and its group, but they do no damage.
• A wild pup'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 still appears hostile, but exhibits neutral behavior.‌[Java Edition only]
• Wolves chase bats despite being unable to reach them.[10]
• In Bedrock Edition, a glitched adult "red wolf" can be spawned using the command /summon wolf ~ ~ ~ minecraft:on_tame, and a "red pup" can be spawned with /summon wolf ~ ~ ~ minecraft:entity_born. The wolf cannot be tamed, bred or fed, though its model color can be altered by using various dyes. A tamed version of this "red wolf" can be obtained by taming it as soon as it becomes hostile toward a mob such as a skeleton.
• A tamed wolf tilts its head toward the player when the player is holding bones, despite it no longer being able to accept bones.
• If a player uses the /effect command to give a tamed wolf with max health health boost 255, absorption 255 and Regeneration 255, the tamed wolf’s tail may begin spinning all the way around constantly, or it just points directly up.

Gallery[]

• 

  A tamed wolf shaking off water droplets after a swim.

• 

  A hostile wolf shaking off water droplets after a swim.

• 

  Wolves having a darker texture when they are swimming or when it's raining.

• 

  Tamed wolves with dyed collars.

• 

• 

• 

  An adult wolf fighting a pup.

• 

• 

  A hostile wolf looking and running at the player.

• 

  A wolf and a cat sitting on carpet.

• 

  Secret skin with level 0 transparency found on the wolf collar.

• 

  Two tamed adult wolves and a pup.

• 

  Two wolves sitting in a boat.

• 

  Wolves in the three main biomes where they are found.

• 

In other media[]

• 

  Steve and Alex with a Wolf.

• 

• 

• 

  Official T-shirt artwork "Owner of the Sphere" made by JINX.

• 

  Tamed wolf plush made by JINX.

• 

  Tamed baby wolf plush made by JINX.

References[]

1. ↑ " No, but they can teleport =)" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on Twitter, March 30, 2011
2. ↑ MC-166291
3. ↑ "No it's random" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on Twitter, March 18, 2011
4. ↑ "We haven't decided how to limit the amount of wolves yet, currently it's unlimited" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on Twitter, March 18, 2011
5. ↑ "Wolves whimper in SMP because I accidentally used the client-side health value instead of the synched one" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on Twitter, April 1, 2011
6. ↑ "Nope, but they have dyable collars instead!" – @Dinnerbone (Nathan Adams) on Twitter, August 17, 2012
7. ↑ MC-54109
8. ↑ "Ok don't laugh, I just tried to make it white to non-bear'ify it, didn't turn out well =)" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on Twitter, March 15, 2011
9. ↑ "Wolf progress (yes it knows "SIT!")" – @jeb_ (Jens Bergensten) on Twitter, March 16, 2011
10. ↑ MC-9925

Entities