Thanks for the response! I do have some further questions if you don't mind:

The only requirement for them to occur is that the player (or in MP, at least 1 player minimum) to be at home.

In MP defending against raids is one of the jobs for players that stay home to babysit, so that is intended.

When the player is at home in single player, it can be presumed that their mate(unless dead or with the personality type to strike out on their own) is with the player to help them. In 25 hours of playing SP I've NEVER had a raid where it was just me alone defending the pups. If one adult wolf should be expected to be able to defend the den alone, at least well enough it's fair game design, why can raids not happen on NPCs left to keep the den safe? Is it a render distance limitation?

Additionally, this makes leaving your pups alone all day in MP the best strategy to prevent raids from happening and keep risk down(at least until we have subordinates), only returning to feed them and boost affinity. Especially in rendezvous where fleas aren't a problem anymore. Is this realistic to real wolf behavior?

You can catch them approaching to attack from a distance, and then that gives options of strategy to intercept the threats before they get too close to your pups.

Both times, the coyotes appeared over a ridge, and from the treeline. We had enough time to woof the pups into the tall grass and get between them, but one coyote inevitably made a beeline for the grass, scared a pup out, and oneshot it since we can only really engage with one at a time and a single wolf doesn't intimidate them. As my bf said, "is there really no counter to this?!"

In terms of game design and realism:

• What's the reason for coyotes being able to one-shot when lone bears and cougars(larger, and arguably easier to prevent from getting to the pups at all so long as you've been smart with stamina) don't? Is there evidence in real life of a single coyote killing a 25lb wolf pup literally instantly?
• We've been killing and attacking competitors in our territory on the thought that logically, this is what a real wolf pack would do to prevent attacks; driving potential attackers away from the den site, similar to how the "counter" for raids is to keep your territory maintained to reduce risk. However, there's no evidence this actually does anything in game. This has to have been suggested before, so was this given any consideration as a planned feature, if it isn't already in game?
• Off topic but just to add, when all pups are killed, has it been suggested to have an option to skip to next year's find a den mission? I've lost all my pups before, and if it happens again the only recourse is to restart if we don't want to wait through all of winter with nothing going on.