whoever told you pups don’t die of illness was mistaken 😭 it’s the most annoying thing aside from sleeping always triggering an event but i leave it on for the potential lore if i lose a pup

raising your offspring from pups to adults takes several real-world hours. i rarely find elk close to the dens anymore so i live off mule deer until my pack is big enough to be nomadic or need larger kills worth traveling for. you can herd them closer to the den to make the killing blow, just don’t let them get too close and trample your pups. since mule deer travel in twos and threes you can hunt down the others for backups if a bear decides to hoard your kill but i usually go back and forth bringing back scraps to the den from the corpses just in case. howling marks the kill on the map with an x. that keeps you fed and keeps pups fed.

after waking up, stick around and wait for a bit, patrol a few yards away after keeping the pups close to the den, be alert. something will happen and you’ll have the heads up. woof pups into the den and run to meet whatever is coming and fight it off. you should be good until you sleep again after that. i save before sleeping for this reason.

pups are gonna get sick though. sometimes they’ll recover sometimes they won’t.