The distinction between dog aggression and people aggression is most important, but so is the distinction between dog aggression and specific prey drive.
Retrievers are VERY aggressive with birds, that's what they're bred for. If you saw my little 43-pound Chocolate Lab confront a live mallard hen, with all her hackles up and every tooth in her head showing, you would think she was a stone cold killer. (Not all Labs will do that, by the way - some will retreat at the first peck in the face. She just closes her eyes and bores in.)
But she is very gentle with my cats and just a melting schmooze with humans.
Our first hunting golden was like that. She had to be dragged out of a cactus once because she could not reach the bird and my husband didn’t want to pull massive amounts of thorns out of her. She was very unhappy about not being able to get that bird. She didn’t notice the pain, because she was in serious hunting mode. She had a very high prey drive, but it was directed at small animals and birds (she did do in several gerbils—she was a master at getting them out of their cages)
Sadly, the majority of people don’t understand dog behavior.