Ytdyklly

On my fantasy planet, humanoid peoples are at war and ride different animals into battle, including wolves. People and their wolves are, for all intents and purposes, extremely similar to humans and earth wolves. Could this physically be possible? Can a wolf support a weight similar to a human's?

No. Wolves are not strong or large enough for a human to ride. If you increased it to the size of a horse, then you have something that could be rideable.

Plus, it would look super weird, if you on a mount that was essential the same height as most tables.

It depends on your world-building to make it work, for the Earth it's not feasible.

How it goes on planet Earth and Earth's wolfs.

Most carry-animals work with weights around 10-30% of their body-mass. Cavalry regulations I know of were: below 20-25% body-mass be it war-horses or other pack-animals.

Modern record-worthy wolfs are 80-105 kg with half that for an average specimens.

Biggest ancient ones had an average body-mass at 60-80 kg with a limit at 110-120 kg.

Even if you are super generous with making them extra strong and sturdy and point out, that smaller animals have better strength and sturdiness to mass ratio. Best you can hope from your wolf is 40-50% body mass, under conditions, that modern laws would consider torture.

With a 40-50 kg limit for the rider and equipment mass... I won't comment on how someone with no regard for war-laws and humane values could make it work on Earth if he had packs of biggest extinct wolfs...

To make it work we can do some world-building.

• Adjust size and weight of your wolfs and humans, so that you are in 20-30% range. Liger-sized wolfs sure would make enemy cavalry have a few complains...




• As extra help you can play with your planet, for example, you can have an Earth-like world with 70% Earths gravity.

Unlikely. The largest wolves – the extinct dire wolf, or the modern canis lupus occidentalis/Canadian timber wolf – are comparable in size to the average human, but weigh less than a human rider (before being loaded out with weapons and armour).

That said, if you were to enlarge your wolves and/or reduce the size and weight of your humans it wouldn't be difficult to justify the relationship.

As others pointed out, wolves won't be strong enough to run while carrying an armed adult. But even if they're larger and more than proportionately stronger than Earth wolves, there is another difficulty that four-legged mammal carnivores in general have bodies that are more flexible and curl almost to an arch and then straighten when running. On the other hand, bodies of herbivores like horses stay relatively flat even when galloping at full speed which makes them more suitable for riding. The wobbling up and down would it not only make it uncomfortable to ride, it would also be harder to control the animal using leashes.

Besides these, there are other points like the fact that they specifically require meat, which can be a problem when travelling in animal-less lands, and their higher aggression and curiosity (herbivores have a greater tendency to be wary while carnivores have a greater tendency to be curious and observant) can override their willingness to obey the commands of their riders.

Of course, since you mentioned that your world isn't Earth, larger wolves (or at least a particular breed of wolves) with a different body structure and behavioral traits wouldn't be out of place, if you're willing to do it.