^{I know this question may be too broad, but I really don't find a way to state my problem in a more concise way.}

I recently began playing Don't Starve Together with my girlfriend, but it has not been a very enjoyable experience for either of us so far. We just keep dying, over and over and over, and we can't really identify a reason for it.

I'll give some examples:

• We just finished exploring the map (took ~6 days) and started to build a camp of sorts. Suddenly a band of around six or seven wolves came and killed us. We even had spears, but we had no chance.
• After the wolf encounter, our sanity was pretty low. We had already picked the flowers from the surrounding area, so the only way we had to regain some sanity was to kill spiders to get silk to make a top hat. Again, the spiders killed us both.
• So our sanity was near zero again, and the monsters continuously chased us around. We couldn't fight them, and they wouldn't disappear. We died again, and stopped playing.

After that, I tried to look at several guides on how to begin playing Don't Starve Together. At first I looked at this "beginner guide", which I did not find very beginner-friendly. He used a lot of terms that seem obvious to him, but which mean nothing to an actual beginner.

I also had a look at this guide from the Don't Starve Together Wiki, but it contradicted the previous guide in some points (e.g. "Don't make the Garland, it's useless" vs. "You should make a Gardland, it'll help you"). It mentioned the wolves (or hounds, rather) briefly, stating:

Hounds are monsters that attack in waves, approximately every 3–12 days. They are extremely dangerous without adequate preparation. Hounds cannot be outrun unless they are being distracted. If the player passes by other mobs, the hounds will usually turn to attack the other mobs.

Hounds might be a big problem sometimes, especially when spawned at night when the player has to run away from the campfire / fire pit.

For such cases, you should prepare a torch when you hear them coming,

Beefalos can kill Hounds quickly, although some of them will die if the wave is too large.

So if I understood this right, when the hounds spawn, I will die?

What am I doing wrong? Why do I keep dying? Or is death just an integral part of the game and I am expected to die over and over?