What a great thread this has turned into. Peter, you have made some real good points. Many times those high scoring dogs are nothing to write home about but they are "correct" in the work, so they go home with all the hardware. I could care less about high in trials, tropheys, and all that stuff. Would much rather have a dog that people would remember, not because of its correctness, but for its intensity. I would much rather fail the protection phase of a SCH trial or whatever pp event, due to my dog being unruly and giving me the finger, than bringing home the hardware with some soft dog who is just mediocre in its work and afraid to make a misatake and face the wrath of its handler. I was talking to my friend about some Rottweiler that is working titled up the ass and the owners "brag" that this dog was trained totally by motivation. I'm like WTF???? People are BRAGGING about that? That would be embarrassing. If I had a dog that was so soft I had to work it purely motivationally, it would not be worthy of a title and I would not hesitate to relegate it to pet status and it most definitely would not be bred!!!. A dog who falls apart when the handler puts control on it it, is useless to me. They need to maintain that work ethic, no matter what.
I know alot about working those high drive assholes, I'm just lucky mine don't come up the leash. However, its no picnic to get some dogs to work under rules, even the ones who aren't apt to retaliate. Its alot of hard work and alot of blood sweat and tears! Have you guys ever imagined what it is like to give a correction to a tree stump? Well, I can describe it to you if you want...lol. As much as a pain in the ass it is to work with such an animal, I wish there was more like that. After all, wasn't the bulldog bred to think independently? They were never bred to be in tune with a handler like the GSD's and mals. A good bulldog should give you the finger on occassion, if it means getting what they want and satisfying that drive they have.
The best dogs usually never make it to the podium. I have learned that very quick. It's the training, not the trial, where you see what most dogs are made of anyways, and I don't care what your training goals are, SCH, Ring, PSA, street work etc, if you train right and your dog has weaknesses you will see it in the training . As long as the training is not too soft that is. Many people tend to hide their dogs weaknesses by babying them during training and hoping for the best on trial day. That's avoidance. Not my cup of tea. If my dogs have weaknesses, I want them exposed and will do whatever I have to during training to accomplish that.
I wish I could have gone to the PSA trial he held this past weekend. 
