We had ours meet on neutral ground. We had brought Athena on the three hour drive and when we met Odin our friends had Athena. The loved to get to play and get to know each other in a park.
Odin had barked and protected his home for 20 minutes to half an hour just because we walked in…
it is very tricky. It is hard for us to let them deal with ranking. I find mine do better in any situation when I give them a command for a trick and they earn treats. They thrive on that.
so far my dogs are fine. We haven ignored fireworks and thunder ourselves and maybe having a glass of wine on the deck watching fireworks with the dogs in the yard helped. They could care less at this point….