How many times have you seen a real life encounter in which a dog steps up and protects the owner? Honest question, not being an ass at all.
Sport may not be "real life" either, but it certainly does test the dogs ability to handle a threat when stressed and pressured. If a dog was true to its guardian nature, than I would think that even in sport, an attack on the dog or handler wouldn't result in the dog running off the field as often as it does.
I've been the one on the protected side of an encounter more than once.
I fostered a kuvasz once. She'd been at our house for several months at that point. She was the happiesty floofiest derpy dog. LOVED everybody. Total attention *****. I had some doubts about whether she had an ounce of defensiveness in her.
Then one evening some dude bent the padlocked gate to break into our yard where she was sleeping. I just heard a horrendous roaring sound and glanced out the window to see a streak of white go by and thought ,
"well *bleep!*"
When I got outside there was several police officers with flashlights running by too. I called the dog back because she'd chased the guy about half a block into a field and was standing on the edge of the property making kujo faces in his direction. The police caught up, searched for him, and said he'd already broken into several other yards the next street over. She was such a good well balanced dog that she let the officers pet her and tell her she's a good girl right after that happened. (The whole time my borzoi bitch was galloping around like it was the funnest game ever. She totally chased the guy too but had no clue about it being a serious bad guy thing
)
Breeders of some LGD breeds tell me that they don't perform well in bite sports and even in the "weird guy with a stick" portion of the ATTS exam because they're bred to be defensive of territory rather than a person holding their leash. You remove them from their territory and they don't have anything left to defend, so why would they want to risk getting whomped by a weirdo with a stick?
Presumably she didn't bite the guy, which is exactly how a guardian breed is
supposed to handle a confrontation. Guardian breeds aren't supposed to indiscriminately maul trespassers and people with sticks. They're independent thinking dogs. Most have low to nonexistent prey drive. They're expected to use their own judgement. They're expected to use the minimum force necessary to drive the threat away from their property.
Usually that escalates as follows:
Threat display (barking, growling, lunging, posturing, etc)
Charging
Muzzle Punch
Tooth Punch
Bite
Even filas and TMs are expected to go through the same steps before resorting to a bite.
Are there LGDs with bad nerves out there? Absolutely. Have people tried to do protection work with them? Absolutely. Have you seen those dogs at practices? Most Likely. I just wouldn't compare an independent breed with zero prey drive that is normally worked on its own property and is expected to drive people *away* to perform in a sport setting the same way a highly prey driven handler oriented breed that has been bred
for bite sports for 80+ years. They're apples and oranges. Bite sports dogs are supposed to catch and hold a guy. LGDs are supposed to make them go AWAY. They can't go away if they are in the dog's mouth. The only exception is the fila, which are highly prey driven and are bred to hold (it's in their name).
Something else to keep in mind is the age of the guardian breed dog. Many are very slow maturing, and their defensive drives don't mature until they are 2-4 years old. If people are bringing puppies/young dogs out, they probably are not going to respond as expected under pressure.