Well, concerning the hair length of wolves; I've been doing some measuring. The summer fur of the wild Arctic wolf i've measured (upper fur, guard hair), is along the spine area longer; around 13/14 cm., the tailhair is about 17 cm, hair on the muzzle is very short and on top of the head a little longer. The hair on the legs is pretty short too. The underfur is very wooly and about half as long as the upper fur and very dense. The hair is not fluffy-silky like a collies.
It seems to me that in wolves it's a matter of different species, like there's the Mexican wolf, Carpathian wolf, Arctic wolf. The fur of the Mexican wolf is shorter than the fur of the Arctic wolf. Next to that, it has to do with the climate and of course the genes each wolf has inherited individually, just like some people can have longer hair than others. Probably the same goes for thickness of fur.
Also look at this winter coat of the Arctic Wolf: When you look at some pictures in the book of Mech you can see the winterfur is longer than 15 cm (Sorry, somehow i cannot send these photos to this site).
Chinook
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