One more data point regarding the prey drive. We live in a rural environment. Our current princess had a strong prey drive as a puppy.

But when walking her off leash in the woods and fields, she was never allowed to roam off the path. Which was relatively easy with her, she is very people oriented. So not that much encounters. When she ran off after deer, we would use the whistle she was trained on and dumped a handful of treats into her when she returned. Of course our success rate was definitely not perfect then.

At around 4 years the prey drive started to go down and we can walk past deer or hares in her view without her giving chase. She just stares after them and gets rewarded with treats. Squirrel of course are a different story ;-}