Ultimately, Steve doesn't want to hurt the animal. So what he ends up doing is more aggressively snuggling him to the ground, wincing and grunting at the 'punch' to his arm before finally speaking.

"All right, furball. I'm gonna keep being a pain until you start..."

He realizes, at this moment, that he has absolutely no idea what he wants from this exchange other than to find out what exactly is going on, and the wolf clearly doesn't seem like it can talk so.

"Okay, new plan. Two noises for yes, one noise for no, okay?"