What I like about my particular herding breed (medium to large dogs) is they are a lot like cats. Independent. Not super concerned about pleasing me as such (but I am amazingly easy for them to train), and not as obsessed with work as some (aussies, border collies etc). And without a good reason, they are not going to do just anything a human wants. When I took my dogs herding, they would bring me sheep about three times and then they were done and wanted something new to do. So I paid the sheep person to let me bring my dogs to her so they could do farm chores - which they loved. They would do several different things with sheep and ducks. Clearly I have a screw loose to give someone money to let my dogs do their farm chores. But it made the dogs so happy.

The problem I have with giant breeds, aside from the great gobs of slobber, is their short average life span.