Phyrie, I've been looking into Schutzhund dogs, high drive dogs for a long time now. I've met many.
These dogs for example.
http://www.truehaus.com/They actually do more fight drive training (which is the titles like PD1 AKA Police Dog 1) since they found Schutzhund not demanding enough. The setting are put into more real life situations. Yet I've met every single one of those dogs and seen them around kids and in the public. A good clear headed dog is what you want for sports.
This is a common confusion in bite sports dogs. There are dogs who would be dangerous in public, because they're often labeled as "High drive" but it's actually a lot of nervous energy.
Schutzhund for the most part is more of a fun game to the dogs, depending on the group and the decoy, but it is equipment based.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtSYpyVf ... Q&index=77And just for an example, I realize this is one dog but there are many dogs like her. My friend has a American Pit Bull Terrier who is quite good at the sport and has a lot of drive. She can work her hard on the field, and then go play with the decoy right after. She has taken her dog to Schutzhund practice then right after to her parents for a Christmas Party and she was the star of the party.
I've seen a lot of people do examples where they're give the dog the command to bite/send them out on someone who doesn't have a visible sleeve, and the dog won't bite because they can't find the sleeve.
Police units train their dogs with hidden sleeves, that go under jackets and sleeves, pants, etc. For the reason I mentioned above.
Dakota is quite obsessed over his fox, and any of his toys. His toy is SOOOOO much more valuable than any piece of food. So I had to teach him that controlling himself gets him his reward. You just have to learn to teach them to control themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiWh4UECSVwhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6PxjcJ4 ... re=related (Yes that's Alice whining in the background)
Something that helps with a dog that may be toy obsessed and really focused on that and blowing off the handler is not rewarding them until they give eye contact. I had to do that with Dakota, everything includes eye contact, even waiting for his food.
And personally I much prefer a focus heel, besides keeping the dog more engaged it takes more training, and I find a good heel a thing of beauty.
Sorry if any of this sounds jumbled, info from my brain is spilling out.
But Dakota is like that, he can go from this:
To this:
Does that make any sense? There's a lot of misconceptions and elitism attitudes in Schutzhund. But you can have a dog who's a good house pet and a good bitework dog. But you are correct that there are some dogs out there who wouldn't be stable in a crowd, some people like dogs like that, the ones I saw had a lot of nervous and frustrated energy and it was being labeled as "Drive". But I prefer a stable dog.
In Schutzhund when they say they're challenging the dog's fight drive, generally it's the dog's willingness to take on a someone threatening them for their sleeve (which is more like a toy in their eyes) Think of a game of tug, you may make growling sounds, bend over the dog, press on their head, charge straight at them, hit them with empty bottles, spray them with water, and a lot of dogs would back away from that. But a Schutzhund dog would be one who would continue to go for the sleeve.
I hope that makes sense.
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So I don't consider them trustworthy sources of information.
I love busy-body dogs. Dogs that just lay around and hang out while you're at home aren't really my type of dog. After a nice long work out, sure, but I like dogs who will bug me to go out and work because they enjoy it. Dakota will do that, he'll walk by me and growl excitedly when he is bored. I have things to keep him busy if I need some time to focus, raw meaty knuckle bones, Kongs, etc. I sort of need them to keep me going so I'm not on my butt for too long. 
