I went to a falconry centre a while back and the guy had an owl that could fly perfectly well, but it’d just run around on its stumpy little legs instead. Nowhere near the smarts of the kestrel that pissed off for several hours instead of participating in the falconry show.
I'm a falconer. Basically no one uses owls for falconry because they have poor generalization intelligence. They have a really hard time transferring knowledge from one situation to another. So you get them flying to you inside and they are nailing it, then you move outside and it has no idea what to do. Every new situation needs to be trained. They are fine for shows and stuff when they are doing the same thing over and over again but constantly putting them in new situations like hunting would do is a recipe for disaster. A "lot"(maybe a dozen a year in US lol) of falconers try to use owls but very few are successful with them.
And by lovable I mean they will like exactly one person and wish death on everyone else. Just because you can have one as a pet and it will be your bestest friend doesn't mean it's a good idea. Owls do not understand vacations or sick days.