@Dave Be sure to tag when you reply to others, otherwise we won't see the posts! I just happened to look back in this thread because I'm nosy.
Leveling is achievable as a goal, yes! I'm planning on maxing out all my perma wolves in my den.
The best way to go about campaign is to use one wolf and their familiar (Furmus are boss) to level that wolf up one at a time. Changing a wolf puts them on a 15 minute timer where they can't be added or removed.
If you want a tip that I discovered for leveling (this may not be the best way to do this but it seemed smart to me), then I would do the quests in all four regions until you have four of them to turn in, equip five wolves to your team, turn all your quests in (You'll get the same experience on all five wolves), then wait out the fifteen minutes and put together your one-wolf-one-familiar team again and do it again. It's a bit annoying to wait out the 15 minutes, BUT you'll get SO much experience on wolves you aren't actively leveling when you turn in your quests.
The reason you want to do only one wolf and their familiar is because of food. You'll only get enough food in the campaign to sustain one wolf's stamina bar and sometimes not even enough for that. Familiars don't eat, which makes them a free second fighter. Darkspine's first sword is a great place to grind at level one on up, you get two packs of level one and level two mobs that are fairly easy to take down. I usually stay there until about level six, and then move to Icerun's second sword to fight the packs of three owls.
I hear the best run for money is the third sword of goldsea with two kits + two furmus, but that's two mouths to feed.
BTW, 10 is max level for wolf and familiar.