My story. The short of it is, I found that just breaking the boat is by far the simplest method to de-boat the wolves.

But for entertainment's sake, I will confess the following.

I typically don't tame wolves (or anything for that matter) because I've always found the process of baiting them into a pit or pen to be more PITA than it's worth. But this one time I was in a pit tracing out some silver, when suddenly I'm attacked from behind by two wolves. They had me pinned in my own self made pit. I was trapped, out of stamina, and quite dead in short order despite my armor.

When I returned to retrieve my things out of my tombstone, I found that the two wolves were themselves trapped in the pit. By this time in the game, I had had enough events at my main base by the trader (ground shaking, skeletons, foul smells, etc.) that I thought, "You know what...? I'm going to go ahead and tame and train these little bastards to breed me an army of wolves to do my bidding!"

With an evil cackle of glee, I throw some raw meat into the pit. Having never done this before, I didn't realize you had to hang around or else the taming process stops. After an embarrassingly long time, I finally figured out that I needed to just build a hut and sit in it for a few game days. I won't bore you with my own boredom and skip to the part where I finally peek out to check on them, and lo and behold, what do I find? Not only are the two wolves tamed, but they've got two wolf cubs with them in the pit! Although I must say here, that the time it took for them to finally tame is another good reason I never do this.

As cool as it was that there were dubs, this did throw a wrench into the plans, because this turn of events meant two more game days of sitting in my hut while the little tykes matured. Valheim wolf cubs, much like human children, don't follow directions too well and tend to just wander around on their own agenda. *sigh*

Before the cubs mature, however a drake pops up and kills one of my adults. Never even named him. So I named the last surviving adult "Solo Lobo". Seemed a fitting name for her. But now I'm wondering if the cubs will even mature with just one adult. I don't know how any of this works at this point.

One of the cubs actually went up the stairs (something I had read they don't do) to the open door of my hut. So I pushed her in and shut the door. Dusting my hands off as a job well done, I set about seeing if I could get the other cub in the house as well. Couldn't find the little bastard and now I'm wondering if he died or something while I was dealing with his litter mate. But no. I finally found him behind a rock off about as far from the encampment as could be and still be in the same biome.

Eventually they matured. I name the one in the hut "Pampers" and the the other one (after looking all over Odin's creation for him again) "Wanderer". Finally I collect Solo Lobo and her now grown cubs and start the trek to the boat. Before I realized I needed to hang around, I had gone down and built the planks over the boat to drop them in. This I had read about because you had better believe I wasn't going to tame these guys if I couldn't get them back to my main base. Thus a little internet research ensued. I accept any accusations of cheating anyone wishes to convey.

The distance to the ship wasn't very much, but a drake appeared just as we were exiting the mountains and... With a tear in my eye, I have to say that poor Pampers, who led a sheltered life, wasn't ready to deal with the outside world. She died a quick and painless death. I hope.

After killing the drake, and feeling miserable that I failed to protect one of my pets, Solo and Wanderer and I headed into the Black Forest where just a short ways away, the ship waited.

Getting them onto the ship was ridiculously uneventful. As was the boat ride back to the main base. Since I had to drop them into the boat, it seemed fairly natural to just... drop them out of the boat as well by breaking it. Except there was one problem with that. My seaport sits on the edge of a swamp and the Black Forest that the trader (and my main base) are in. This had been great because--Can you say "endless supply of blood bags"? But now those damn leeches were going to be a problem.

As we pulled into port, night fell. As if anything else could go wrong. Still... everything here should be easy. Right? I cleared the leeches and then broke the boat. Almost immediately I hear one of the wolves whine and the snarl of a fight about to go down.

"Crap." I thought. "I missed a leech." I had (and still have) no idea if a wolf can stand up to a leech's poison. And of course it's night time now and the stars are out, if you know what I mean.

But it turned out that it was just a draugr and a bow. The wolves made short work of him and I'm starting to pat myself on the back for my brilliant plan working out, when every damn thing under the sun came out to greet my wolves home. Skeletons, more Draugrs, Graydwarfs... I even saw a blob a ways away that I took out with my bow. After what seemed like an eternity of fighting and slaughter, my wolves and I looked around at a polluted mess of drops all over the damn place. I had to rescue Solo out of the water where she got stuck, but otherwise... Not bad!

So off up the path to my main base we go. Up the stone stairs, I open the darkwood doors, and "SCRATCH!" "Whine, whimper" and then another "SCRATCH!".

I turn around to see what the actual, and what do you think I find?

A Wraith. A Wraith on my doorstep killing my wolves. Deep in the Black Forest. Are you F@$ing KIDDING me?! It had to have followed up from the seaport, but... From there it really should have attacked sooner than that, yeah? Whatever. I will forever call BS on this game driven sneak attack.

Poor Solo died trying to fight some flying thing she'd never seen before and couldn't reach. Wanderer, panicked, trying desperately to attack this thing that just killed his mother before his very eyes. And me. Stunned at first, jaw agape IRL, then flying in to a furious rage, launched myself at the Wraith with my black metal knife and killed the foul, out of place thing in one blow.

Wanderer, with only a quarter of his health left, limped the rest of the way inside the castle. I picked up poor Solo's pelt off of the door step and closed the door. Turning around I look at Wanderer looking at me and throw him some deer meat. Suddenly I realize that I--someone who has always loathed the taming of animals in this silly game--knew without a doubt that I was going to go back and get Wanderer a mate. After all we had been through, I wasn't about to just turn this poor guy loose all alone on a forest that would eventually kill him.

But I don't know that I'll name any of the others though.

Anyway. I hope you all enjoyed my wolf's tail tale. May your adventures be great!