Here are a couple of articles on dominance and aggression-
1. Aggression and Dominance in Dogs (UC Davis).
2. Dominance and bad dog behavior.

Re Helping my dogs get along with people:
Two key things that help with my dogs-
1. Creating a bond – My partner walks a dog in the morning, and also walks them during the weekends. He feeds them in the morning, and I do the feeding in the evening. He also plays with them, grooms them, and we do the training together. We agree on the house rules, and make sure we use consistent techniques to train them. In this way, our dogs create a bond with the both of us, and sees us both as part of their family.

2. People desensitization exercises – I also do people desensitization exercises with my dogs so that they learn to view other people in a positive way, and also learn what to do when they meet people. Dogs do not know our human greeting rules, they do not know that we have thin skins, and they do not know our language. Therefore, it is up to us to teach them these things. Desensitization helps my dogs to be comfortable around people, and to use alternative behaviors for coping with stress when they feel threatened.

The most important part with desensitization is to *always* start with a very weakened version of the stimulus, weak enough that our dog can tolerate it without losing control. With people, I can weaken the stimulus by using distance and making sure that the person is calm and totally ignoring my dog (no talking and no eye-contact). In this way, I can start to teach my dog new behaviors to use when in the proximity of people, and also to reassociate people with positive outcomes.

Re Pinning a dog down until he submits:

This is also called an alpha roll. It was something that I did with my Shiba Inu (Sephy) when he was younger and unfortunately, we did not have good results. Sephy became very sensitive to handling, he grew distrustful of people, he felt more threatened, and used aggression even more to protect himself. Here is a bit more on our experiences with the alpha roll.

Later on, I discovered that this technique is very risky and can cause increased aggression in dogs.

Professional help:

Given what you describe, it sounds like it may be best to get some help from a professional trainer. Dog training is very context dependent, and a dog’s behavior depends a lot on his temperament, routine, environment, past experience, and more. To come up with an effective retraining plan, we want to identify the source or triggers of a dog’s aggression, and this is best done by a trainer who can meet with and observe our dog.
http://www.apdt.com/petowners/choose/

Clyde will rip Ginger apart

For more serious types of aggression, it is best and safest to get help from a professional trainer.
http://www.apdt.com/petowners/choose/

In general, systematic desensitization exercises can be used to raise a dog’s instinct threshold, and teach him new and alternative ways for dealing with the stress of meeting other dogs. This is best done under the direction of a good trainer.

I would retrain my existing dog first, and *not* introduce any big changes into his routine (e.g. a new dog) until I have the aggression under control.

Re Punching and demanding attention:
Dogs will repeat behaviors that get them good results and stop behaviors that get them undesirable results. Dogs often jump and punch because when they do that, we usually give them our attention. We may try to push them away, shout at them, move around, and more. All this moving around will likely get our dog more excited, and think that it is a fun game.

What has worked well with my dogs is to withdraw my attention when they jump or bite.

Here is a bit more on how I train my dogs not to jump on people.
Here is a bit more on how dogs learn.

Re Potty training:
I would go back to potty training basics. Here are some things that I did to potty train my Husky puppy.

Re Dog dominance:
A bit more on dominance and bad dog behavior.

Given that young kids are involved, I would get help from a professional trainer. Dog behavior is very context dependent. To properly diagnose and retrain a behavior, it is often necessary to see the dog, read her body language, get to know her temperament, as well as understand her routine and environment.

Just based on what you describe, it sounds like the aggression behavior comes from fear and anxiety. Here is a useful article from UC Davis on aggression and dominance.

In terms of guarding food and toys, here are a couple of articles on my experiences with my dogs-
Why dogs get aggressive over food and toys.
How I trained my dogs not to guard their food and toys.

Here is another article on dog dominance and bad behaviors.

Hugs to Poppy!

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE,

Lindsey

I have a 3 year old german spitz called Poppy, and I think she sees herself as alpha over my two youngest children – they are 4 and 8. She will let them walk her if I am not with them (if I am, she will bark constantly and keep looking to me) – we have a park next to the house that they go to. My main concern is that she growls and sometimes snaps at them. She is nervous about some things – she will outright attack the vacuum cleaner- I generally prompt her to leave the room when using it now. But the kids cant bring toys through on the floor, she will attack the toys. If she has a treat, they cannot go anywhere near her – even if she is in her crate with it ( where her bed is) she will growl. What can I do to get across that she is not alpha? Or what can I get the kids to do? I am worried that she will at some point go too far.