What to do when the forest & taiga has no wolves?

[PatrickSJ]

As the subject says I have trouble finding wolves in my new world. This has never happened before...

I spawned a new world in a jungle biome. I am surrounded by plains, desert, and tundra, so no wolves nearby. I traveled until I found a forest & a taiga, but I've explored every inch of them and I'll I find are cows, sheep, chicken, and pigs. Not a wolf to be seen.

Is there anything to do except explore, hope that I get lucky, and find another forest or taiga biome? I've checked in other directions I've encountered no forest or taiga biomes except the 2 I've already checked.

[Eriottosan]

Just keep looking, I'm afraid. However, don't discount the areas you have already explored. On rare occasions, I have found that if I go out of range of a forest/taiga chunk then return to it, wolves have magically appeared there. But yeah, just keep looking ...

[whitechaos35]

When I get really angry, I just search the nbt tags for the wolf id and write down the coordinates.

[rhacer]

I abandoned my first BTW world because after hours of searching and exploring in all directions I was unable to find any wolves. My second (and still current) BTW world it took me a while but I was able to find some wolves.

[Miss_Kat]

I only just now found wolves in my latest world, after playing it for several weeks now. I finally found them by just setting up camp in the taiga. Brought along all the supplies I needed and just spent time building an outpost. Every few in-game days I'd head out in the morning and search the whole taiga. It was around the 6th or 7th go at it that I found two of them.

[danielngtiger]

I've had similar experiences. The only solution I've found is to keep looking. Like Eriottosan said, I've had old places magically get wolves, but other than that, just hope you're lucky.

[kaos78414]

Vanilla Minecraft has a cap for how many friendly mobs it'll spawn in an area. Bring a lot of torches, swords and a bed to a forest/taiga biome, set up a huge perimeter of torches and put your bed somewhere, kill all the mobs you see. Eventually wolves will spawn.

[M!C]

Vanilla Minecraft has a cap for how many friendly mobs it'll spawn in an area. Bring a lot of torches, swords and a bed to a forest/taiga biome, set up a huge perimeter of torches and put your bed somewhere, kill all the mobs you see. Eventually wolves will spawn.

As far as I know wolves don't share their spawn limit with hostile mobs, so lighting won't increase the odds of them spawning.

Apologies in advance if you just meant them to be used to see better but I think placing down lots of torches for just that is rather tedious.

[kaos78414]

As far as I know wolves don't share their spawn limit with hostile mobs, so lighting won't increase the odds of them spawning.

Apologies in advance if you just meant them to be used to see better but I think placing down lots of torches for just that is rather tedious.

It just helps so that you don't run into so many hostile mobs while doing this. It also helps define a perimeter to work within.

[Kazuya Mishima]

I've also had problems and on a recent occasion tried to play on an island map starting with only 1 tree which was fun until i had to get wolves which meant finding the mainland, finding wolves and then coaxing them back over and ocean(that was no fun at all), When the time came to get other animals i just said Fk it and abandoned the island.

Do you guys think there should be some way to transport animals quicker? Maybe turn them into an item egg which is available in creative so it's already an existing game item ?

[Flesh_Engine]

Keep the chunk active yet be far enough away to allow spawning & count the lucky stars!

[Mr_Hosed]

Or you could do like I've been known to do and spawn in some wolf spawner eggs using InvEdit and just say "Fuck it!".

[Andellmere]

Three ways I can see for you to get the wolves you so desire:
1. Complete Legitimacy: Set-up an outpost and hang out near the taiga/forest until wolves spawn
2. Semi-Legitimacy/Cheating: Spawn a pair of wolf eggs, then tame them with bones you gather via killing skeletons
3. Complete Cheating: Spawn a pair of wolves and then tame them with cheated in bones.

It all depends on how you wish to run your world. Personally, I generally go with option two if I have a particularly good spawn and there are no wolves available(i.e. I'm on a beautiful island that has maybe two trees). Then I kill those two when I get legitimate wolves.

[August West]

2. Semi-Legitimacy/Cheating: Spawn a pair of wolf eggs, then tame them with bones you gather via killing skeletons

If I resort to this tactic, I typically throw away a(n) item(s) of value (such as a couple diamonds). At the very least, it makes me feel a little better about it.

[Mr_Hosed]

Amazes me the tricks we play with ourselves to justify actions or to sooth our concience. The way I look at it this boils down to one question. Will I have fun searching for hours looking for wolves or not. Since this is my spare time and my actions affect noone else, spawn the wolves in and call it good.

Also, one thing I've been known to do is to test a world out in creative first. Fly around, spot a starting location, etc. The other thing I do is check that wolves are in the area. If not, I make them available ;)

[Poppycocks]

I usually travel trough the nether if I'm stranded. Sometimes I use AMIDST for finding out which way to the closest taiga.