Taking your dog out on walks with aggressive dogs in the area
Your dog is getting aggressive on your walks towards other dogs coming or charging at you. Why? Well our dogs look to us for leadership, and if one of two things will and can happen. Now remember that dogs belong to a pack, your part of that pack. As his leader you will dictate to him what his behavior should be or should not be. Dog do not accept other dogs from outside their pack as they are a threat for reproducing, food source and the territory of the pack. You, your family, kids, your pets and friends are all part of the dogs pack. But for him, when a strange dog approaches, he feels a threat is near. But as the Alpha of the pack it is your job to teach the dog what his behavior should be or should not be. You will let him know what he can not do and what he must do to replace his behavior. Now some of the reason he is acting up.
One your fearful, and the dog reacts because you set the dog off since your the leader you emotions told him to be on the look out. Second thing is if your not the proper leader then he will take charge and decide for himself what is harmful and take charge.
This happened to me a long time ago, with my first pure German Shepherd Dog his name was Dok. We were out on our daily walk and we got attacked not by one or two but three German Shepherds. I was lucky where I had passer 'byres in cars stop and help me break up the fight. I was badly shaken up and terrified from that day forward of any dog or what every barking sound I heard. I would jumped and start to shake. And Dok reacted to this fear, he started acting out on our walks by being jumpy and starting to growl at other dogs. What did I do? I thought out the problem and set out a plan to solve the solution. So I got a prong collar, Dok was over 125 lbs at the time, so for better control, I put on the prong collar. I then proceeded to walked up to every dog in a fenced yard that we could fine. And I would just have us sit there, just sit there. The dog on the other side at first would go crazy, but pretty soon he would get tired and go away. While Dok would started to react, but I corrected him, telling him a firm no and redirected his behavior to what I wanted. I would then tell him watch, watch with the treats hanging from my mouth for his attention to be on me and not the dog. A nice quite sit, and stay with no emotion allowed. It took a few weeks, and lots of work I spent hours and hours on this. But I got us over the hump that was needed. And after that time I never had a problem with him being aggressive towards other dogs even thou after that situation we got attacked by two pit bulls on two different day in the same week! But I never needed the prong collar again and did not need to use it.
But as his pack leader I decided to take a course of action to fix a problem, and I did. I took the leadership role and by doing that. It told him what I wanted and what I expected and he followed thru.
So you need to decide weather your dog is doing his aggression due to #1. By your manners as the pack leader you have set a rule for aggression. Or #2. He has taken the leadership from you for your protection and acting out as the leader. So once you decided which one it is you can work on the problem. Now as the leader of your dogs pack, you must look out for dangerous situations. That is your job, sometimes you can not stop a loose dog or a charging dog. But you can react in a positive manner. I took charge after the pit bull situation, by caring a belly bag or fanny pack with nice big rocks and a good stout walking stick. And I set up a plan in my head for any problem that might arise. I knew that with my own dogs If I acted all tough and put on a bluff, it worked to back them off. So I decided to make a stand with the offending dogs, I had a method for loose dogs.
For long range situations
I used my voice, if a dog or dogs was coming at me, I would raise my voice in volume but had it in a very low ,but in a very gruff tone and made it as growly as possible. I would Yell NO or UGG as loud and as big as possible. And then tell them to go home! If that did not work. I went to method two.
I would take a step towards the dog, or dogs, and throw my rocks at the dogs. At first I would try and just throw in the area of the dogs. If that did not work I would try and hit the dogs with the rocks.
For short range situations
This is generally for dogs with more than two or more in the group. Dogs in this situation is the most dangerous as in groups of two or more have a feeling they can take on the world as a pack and is much harder to stop them from charging you. So I had a plan of what to do to stop them from coming at me.
I would make sure that I threw my rocks to hit them instead of just intimidating them. While at the same time I tried to be as big as possible to the pack to make coming at me a greater threat to them. I would also make sure I yelled and made as much noise to scare them off and give them the idea that I was a big ass Alpha not to be bother with. Then if they got close to me, I would have my walking stick out, and start hitting the pavement or ground in as threatening manner as possible. If that did not work, I would start swinging my stick to hurt the dogs. I had the attitude they were NOT going to hurt MY dog!
All the time I would be doing this I made sure my dog was in a sit/ heel position and minding me, and I made sure they knew that I was taking charge over the protection of our little pack. So if you have it in your head that your the boss, your in charge. Then your will take charge over your dogs behavior to stop the dog with a correction who is trying to protect you, then by redirection to his proper behavior he should back down and let you handle the situation.
So now that you know the main reasons for aggression and how to stop it. By being the leader, and by being on the look out for this type of problem, You are dictating to your dog that he is not to behave in such a manner.
So too should it be with your pup, If you take the leadership from the pup, then you should not have a problem if your pup is a sound mentality and genetic wise puppy. I would socialize the pup a lot, around a lot of people, and dogs. Make it your business to teach the pup, what to do and what not to do! You must DICTATED THEIR BEHAVIOR. One thing that might help you is this, if you can stop your dog from being aggressive while he is thinking about it, prior to his acting out on it, It is soooo much easier than when they are in a all out attack in a physical way. Either way you must decide his behavior, not the pup and certainly not the older dog. Your the leader of the pack and what you say or think goes. So you have to ask yourself? Are you capable of being the leader? Do you have what it will take, to make sure that you TEACH the pup the proper behavior to have? If the answer is yes then go for it, if it is no then don't. You be the judge of what you can and can not do with your dogs. But please be honest with your self in your ability's.
One thing I do want to point out, is you do have the option of driving your car to a different area where it is safe. So please think it thru if the area is truly dangerous then this may be an option.
MAY THE GOOD LORD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU SAFE LIKE A GSD.