Wolves can still be tamed and it seems like they can still be fed with food. I haven't messed around with it too much so I'm not sure if I can recommend removing the functionality, leaving the functionality, or expanding on it.
One thing that did occur to me though not until after my wolves got killed was whether the level is maintained when they die. In other words, if a player tamed wolves from a really high level area, could it help the gameplay as a sort of useful challenge? Currently there only seems to be a tradeoff between using bones for repairs vs using them to tame wolves.