totaly agree helena

Its kind of why dogs attack Mia
She is friendly (cry of all owners with difficult dogs I know) IF she gets the chance to greet a dog then she gets on with them
But her body laungage is v suspicious (although improving and she actully shows fear and all sorts of things now - not just the hackles up on tiptoes 'are you friendly' look that she used to do

Ben on the other hand is v interesting to watch
He never gets in fights
I have watched this kind of greeting - both dogs tense and stairing. Ben then turns his head away and looks back, the other dog looks away and Ben trots over and sniffs the dog
Sometimes in that situation Ben will be v grovly to the ground, other times he will be v confident, head up tail up
I believe the looking away isnt submitting, its just polite saying he isnt a threat

and I am so very lucky with him because if the other owners lets me send him over to say hello to their dogs then Mia will always be friendly once she has seen him say hello to them

Vito does this too- it's always before play, he's never been aggressive, but I hate it as I assume the other person thinks he's going to attack!

Parker does this behaviour when he is unsure about another dog. He just stands and does a hard stare but will usually just walk away once he realises the other dog is ok.

He only did it to the Labradoodle that he went for after warning it twice about it jumping on Cherry and it taking no notice. He pinned it down by the throat and it looked awful but he hadn't hurt it. Later read this is called ritualised aggression. He had given it 2 warnings first though and never seen him do this before or since but anyway when he used to see this Labradoodle he always would stop and stare at it even if it was a long distance away. Just to ensure there was no repetition I would call him and leash him at first but they get on fine now as the Labradoodle keeps away from Cherry and they had a sniff of each other last time they met.

The other dog he did it to was a Rottweiller that was near the flat where it lived and was looking a bit territorial. The Rotty was standing stock-still eying Parker up and Parker was doing the same to him. They were about 60 feet away. It made me a bit nervous as they didn't look very friendly but I just walked on with Cherry and then Parker averted his head and walked off back to us.