I'll give my opinion. We've observed some shyness with Dusty that we didn't even pick up on when we visited her before deciding to bring her home (age 7 months). She will approach people, but will not allow them to pet her right away, especially on the head(dominance thing??). This is worse and lasts longer with men, and is better with children. We were concerned at first because we had wanted a dog that would like our friends. As it has turned out, she loves a party! She may be slow to let people pet her, but she loves the crowd. The shyness confuses people who are used to dogs coming right up for attention (especially on walks and at the dog park), but it keeps Dusty from being annoying to people as well. We've had some repairmen around lately, and she generally follows them around sniffing at their feet. She doesn't hide under a chair. She will jump away if they reach for her. We do have a fair amount of company (usually the same people) and she has gotten more and more enthusiastically friendly with the people she has already met. She is also not afraid to be petted if she is being held, and can be handed to a stranger without any problem. It's been interesting. Our last dog had to be dragged away from anyone that came in the door. We've found the little bit of shyness to be easier to deal with than that!
We start training classes next week, so we'll see how that goes. They are supposed to cover shyness stuff in the class.
If I were you, I'd ask more questions to find out how this dog's shyness manifests itself, figure it can be improved somewhat, and think about whether this dog will fit into your lifestyle or not.
On a side note, when we were visiting Dusty, the breeder had two other dogs that she said had been very shy since birth. Of the several havanese we met that day, they were the slowest to approach(others were in our laps right away), but they did, and one of them was accepting lots of love from our nine-year old before the visit was done. I'll try and post a picture...
