Balancing pet expectations vs sport expectations

Hi everyone - apologies if this is a naive question. I posted here a few days ago and got some great advice so posting again.

I’m a first time dog owner and have a 1.5 year old mini poodle who comes from serious agility lines. I got him as a pet, not a sports prospect, but intend to dabble in recreational dog sports down the line.

Right now, we’ve been working on general manners and foundational training. He’s higher drive, given his background, and he’s a more independent thinker that loves testing the rules (even for a poodle). I’ve been doing a ton of training with him, both in-person group and Fenzi, but still work a pretty intense FT job so we’re still working on a lot of things. Training him has been deeply rewarding but also feels like whack-a-mole some days - I’d love a bombproof, polite dog. Some days I see many glimpses of that, and other days feel like his terrible teenage days.

I have a professional dog care company coming to take him on walks when I’m at work. We just started group walks. My guy went to puppy play classes at our local SPCA when he was 3-4 months old and played in group puppy classes weekly for 5 months after that, but he hasn’t had many direct interactions with other dogs since - I wanted to avoid on-leash greetings to build neutrality so it’s only been a few play sessions with our neighbor dog in the hallway.

Recently, our usual walker said that he was initially nippy with this neighbor dog on their group walk. I’ve never seen this happen before - he and this dog get along very well - but he has gotten like this with us humans when he’s very excited to play. The winter storms here have him stir crazy, so I imagine my dog was overexcited. But I’m still nervous that this turns into a real issue vs a one-time thing, as I’d love to have him continue meeting dog friends through these group walks and eventually do hiking outings with them.

That brings me to my question… thank you for reading all the way through…How do you all prioritize among all the things you have to train? What matters and what doesn’t? Balancing good citizen behavior vs sports foundations? Does having dog friends actually matter? You all are such experienced dog trainers… I’d love to hear what works for you and how you decide. I want to give my pup a fulfilled life and while also outsourcing some care during work hours.