​What is appropriate greeting? And why is it important?
1. An appropriate greeting is brief. Very brief. Studies show that dogs on their own will greet each other for 7 seconds or less. In a natural greetings dogs meet each other nose to tail and then leave after a few seconds of sniffing.
In our human world greetings are influenced by leashes and people being in the way or being something a dog wants to protect. In this case we still want to try to mimic the natural greeting patterns.
So to follow the Pied Piper Method, allow your dogs to approach from the side, head-to-head greetings are viewed as aggressive. Most dogs will curve towards each other to convey non-aggressive intent. Allow dogs to sniff each others hind end (in the dog world this is polite). Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three seconds allows enough time to judge the other dog but avoids any aggressive response from either dog. At this point disengage your dogs and carry on your way. Alternately if you want to see if the dogs want to play, repeat the process of the three second greeting a couple more times. Pretty soon you'll be able to tell if the dogs like each other and are showing play signals or if they would rather not. Then use your own discretion with what follows.
2. Why is it important? I'm betting you're not a fan of strangers barrelling up to you and giving you bear hugs, right? Your dog is probably the same. A polite, sideways, brief intro is the equivalent of a handshake at a party. It's good manners and sets a good tone for future interactions with that dog and all future dogs. If your pet knows they won't be flattened by the neighbors exuberant Great Dane, they're more likely to want to interact with it.
Always ask the other owner if they want to do an intro, keep it under three seconds, and then go back about your day.
In this series of photos you can see each step.
1- Dogs are greeting each other from more of a side angle, each dog is curving into a 'C' shape as they work their way down each others body.
2- Here they have settled into a rear end sniff, still curved. The owners are preparing to move along (because the greeting is so short you're moving almost the whole time).
3. Dogs have been moved away, our lab very focused on his owner and not feeling the need to interact with the other dog.
The whole process is low-key, natural, and quick.
Not all dogs are dog people, so this keeps them from feeling uncomfortable.