Leo's friends

Do dogs have friends? I know, weird question, but it's certainly something that I think about when I see him interacting with other dogs.

We're now back in Greenpoint (we being the royal we - Me, Leo and Orlando) after an extended sojourn to central Brooklyn and Queens (Bushwick and Ridgewood) (I cannot recommend Ridgewood, btw).  It's like coming back home.  Living in a place for 12 years will do that to you, I guess.  But for Leo, Greenpoint is where he first met us, where he first lived in the backyard, then the Condo, and now he's back (to my crowded little Jr. 1-BR under the BQE... but I digress).  We get to go to McGorlick park again, which is great, and he loves it - I think he thinks of it as his park.
But back to my point - in one of our first walks here in Greenpoint, Leo ran in to Bruno.  Bruno is a husky, and Leo loves huskies (and malamutes and other sled-type dogs).  They play a certain way (a really rough jumping-up-in-the-air style) and act a certain way and have a very specific body language that is all their own - and that, for some reason, Leo seems to get. People often pull their husky/malamute/etc away from him with a warning about not being good with other dogs.  Then they see how Leo and their dog respond to each other - same body language, same actions, same jumping around, and then the owners tend to relax.
Leo had a husky friend - Bruno - here in Greenpoint.  They would play (roughly) (see what I did there?) and jump around.  Even while Leo was sick with chemo, he still had energy for Bruno.  But when I moved to Bushwick, well, we didn't know the owners that well, and you know how things get...
Fast forward to now, and we're back in Greenpoint. Not only are we getting a "oh, you're back!" from the folks who are still around, but we're getting a "he's... still...." And I finish with " ... Alive, yes!". Seems that when we disappeared, people feared the worst - not necessarily because of the cancer, but simply because, well, none of us are getting any younger.
And then we ran in to Bruno. Bruno had also had cancer, and had also survived  (although he is much skinnier than I remember, and certainly doesn't have the energy he once did).  We walked up to Bruno and it was like old guy friends meeting each other - there was no animosity, just something that looked, to both me and Bruno's dad, like friends excited to see each other.  They jumped.  They bounced around. They sniffed, and did the head-on-shoulder dominance thing, then jumped around again.  Both dogs looked years younger. And when we finally left and walked away, Leo had a spring in his step all the way home, and was in a fantastic mood for the rest of the day - very much in the same way a person is when they meet a long-lost acquaintance or friend, that nice warm glow that friendship can pass on.
So, do dogs have friends?  Seems like it.