aggressive behavior in a 'gentle giant'?
Remember that many of the breeds that are promoted as "gentle giants" were in fact originally bred to be protection dogs. I'm not saying that all these breeds are prone to aggression- simply that this side of their background may come to the fore if they become unbalanced.
You've already picked up on part of the problem. If you, your family and friends are nervous/tense/fearful whenever someone visits, your dog will pick up on that. If your family is feeling such weak emotions, your dog is more likely to take up the "protect the owner" role, thus becoming aggressive to any potential threat. The fact that you don't show him the proper way to behave with visitors only reinforces that the aggessive behaviour is what you want.
I'm not a dog trainer, so I can't really give you step by step instructions on how to safely train your dog to exhibit better behaviour to guests. I recommend that a session or two with a reputable dog trainer may be just what the doctor ordered.
But basically, you have to 1) be calm and show your dog that you are in control of the situation, so he doesn't have to be, 2) show him how you want him to behave, rather than simply removing him from the situation, and 3) teach your visitors how to behave in the dog's presence.
I hope that helps! Best of luck. ^_^
With big dogs I found the best way to overcome this is to clearly greet the friends and make the dog or dogs part of the greeting. Mine used to shake hands - which was a cute trick in one way but in another it served to settle down and relax the guests who were often less socially adequate and intelligent than they were.
The other thing I found was to try and keep things calm, fake squealing, hand flapping and overacting will unsettle a dog, it is false and unusual and the dog does not understand it, neither would the people who do it if they saw a video of themselves.
Did I mention that our guests were invariably my first wife's friends
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