Incessant Barking & Nipping – Resource Guarding??

We have an almost 8 month old English lab. He has done mostly well with puppy training for general commands (sit, down, etc.) but his barking is so loud and so incessant, and he still nips so badly at my husband and me, and won’t let us sit on the couch. The trainer said he just wants attention, and I get it, but that’s just not possible to give him attention all the time, and nor can we expect to stand all the time when we want to read, watch tv, etc. The trainer suggested we leash him around the house and yank on it to give “no” commands and help him understand he can be close to us but have a little freedom at times, or when he nips or to give him a toy in place of nipping.

I am concerned some of this is possible resource guarding, from what I’ve tried to research, and we’re at a loss over it.

For reference, his crate is downstairs, and he seems to love it. He will go into the crate voluntarily when we sit down to eat dinner at the table and sleep during our meals. He is crated overnight just fine and doesn’t bark when we crate him to go run errands. Otherwise, he is free to roam (within reason, we have gates Ho for little kiddos to stay contained in certain areas at times) and/or if we are cooking and need him “contained” we will tether his leash to a nearby door so he can only go so far (he’s chewed our wooden baseboards up when given too much freedom.) He has been upstairs once, and maybe he can more frequently when he’s older and not as mischievous, but it’s just not something we are comfortable with consistently for now.

Okay, the barking – which is LOUD – I mean, so so loud – it has set off my decibels notification warning on my watch countless times: he only seems to bark when my husband leaves the room and/or goes upstairs. If it’s just me at home, or even when it’s me and the kids at home and my husband goes to the store, he doesn’t bark at us. And he only seems to do this during the daytime. At night, I think he’s gotten well adjusted to our bedtime routines, so once we go upstairs for the night, he’s mostly okay with all of us being upstairs and him being downstairs in the crate, unless if the dishes aren’t done, he whines until the dishes are done/dishwasher runs.

I think what makes all this complicated is that we work from home so we are home a lot in general, but often times, my husband can’t even have him in his office, which we moved from upstairs to downstairs recently, when he’s working because he will bark at him or nip at him the whole time, and it’s become disruptive at times for work meetings. The daytime barking has also become disruptive for kid nap times.

We previously had an American lab (rest his soul), and he wasn’t like this at all. He was calm, hardly barked, and was such a chill pup. Times were different then though because we didn’t have kids until he was a little older and also we didn’t work from home. I will say, our new dog is not yet fixed – could that help some behaviors? Looking back at our previous lab, they suspected that getting him fixed too soon contributed to some physical developmental issues that contributed to his early death, so we are worried about running into that again.

I feel like a failure at times with our new dog, and it’s so tough to work through the frustrations. Any suggestions at all? I sincerely appreciate anything anyone has to share. Thanks for reading all of this, too.