Aggression/lack of respect towards women

Question
Jack was about 2 when he first showed aggression towards me. My husband had been out of state for about three months at this point. I decided to let Jack come inside for a while, since he doesn't get to do it often. He immediately walked over to our couch and marked the back of it. I ran up to him and smacked him on the butt (I haven't hit him since) and told him "No, bad dog, bad dog..."  and he turned and started growling and his hackles went up and he was snarling. Of course my natural reaction was to back off. I pointed to the back door and told him "Out" and he went, growling but with his tail tucked.
My husband has taught my dog several commands, including sit, no lick, out, go, down, watch 'em, where's your toy?, and can even do sit and down with only hand signals. He runs him sometimes on the military obstacle course. He always used positive reinforcement during training and used negative reinforcement only when Jack got into something or chewed something up that he shouldn't have.
We did briefly meet his parents and all I can remember is the father non-stop barking and jumping on the fence. The mom was pretty laid back, far as I could tell. She was laying in the whelping pin and didn't get up.
Another thing I was thinking, my husband bought a bite sleeve for Jack, and in retrospect, I think it was a terrible idea. I refused to put it on, because he is already aggressive enough towards me, so my husband would put it on, but Jack would always "Out" when given the command.
I wonder if another contributing factor could be boredom? We had just moved into our house that January, and it's out in the country. Before we moved, we were in a neighborhood and he would run the fence barking at cars and people going past. Do you think he needs more to do?
Again, thank you.
-------------------------

Followup To

Question -
We bought our male GSD, Jack, when my husband and I moved in together. Jack was about 10 weeks old, and is now about 3 1/2. My husband is the definite alpha in Jack's eyes, but Jack only listens to me when he wants to. I don't want to hit him, but that's how my husband got this very aggressive dog's respect. Starting last April, Jack has been especially aggressive towards me when my husband is not around, which is fairly often, since my husband is military. If I scold him or one of our other 2 dogs, Jack puts his head low to the ground, his hackles go up, and he snarls and growls at me. If I scold Jack for this behavior, he just growls more. I'm afraid to challenge him further, as I don't want to get attacked. Just the other day, my husband and I were sitting on the porch and I put my hand out to block Jack from running off to mark where my male puppy was peeing and Jack immediately started growling at me in front of my husband which has never happened before. My husband jumped up and slammed his hand on the table and yelled "NO" and Jack turned and started growling at my husband. He told him to go off the porch and Jack ran off, growling at us the entire time, hackles still up. My husband walked towards the half of our yard that is separated and Jack followed, but still growling and snarling at him. Jack has never done this in front of my husband before, and now I'm afraid we will have to get rid of him. My husband is so upset over the incident. Do you think neutering him would help with the dominant behavior towards me? I think he was probably testing my husband to see if he could get away with it. Jack does not listen to women at all, but he will quickly obey a man's command. I hate not being able to trust this dog that has been in our family for so long, and I don't want to give him up, but I am at a loss. I don't even know if taking him to obedience training would be safe. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Answer -
Hi Tamara,  You have a major problem.  First your husband dominated a dominate dog, which is something you should not do, and now you are dealing with the consequences.  What happens is when you dominate a dominate dog, they will start to dominate others that they consider below them.  Neuering can help, but your dog is at an age where he is pretty much set in his ways.  His mentality is that of a 21-30 yr old man.  Think of a man at that age being hit all the time to be corrected.  They will be angry and fight back at anyone who tries to correct them, and eventually take on the one who has hit them (which your dog just did).  Obedience training can help to get him under control as you would have commands at your disposal to work him and get him to understand where his place is in the family, but the problem is that if you are already in fear of him, he senses that and will not only pick up on that, but take advantage of it.  I am curious as to how old the dog was when the aggression started and what lead up to it.  Did the dog ever have any training?  You can tell your husband that a dog's mind is like a child's mind, you treat it as such, so you need to mold it the way you want it to come out.  If you are violent to a child, a child will eventually become violent.  That is a proven fact.  The same is true for dogs.  At this point, you have some hard decisions to make as I personally would not trust the dog not to hurt someone as he obviously has a lot of issues.  You will have to do a lot of work to try and correct it, and there is no guarantee you can.  Again, knowing the age of when the aggression started can help me know if this aggression was originally genetic or became environmental. Did you ever meet the parents of the dog?  Hope this helps, and let me know the answers to the questions if you want more help.

Dawn

Answer
Hi Tamara,  Who was controlling the dog while he was on the bite sleeve and attacking your husband?  Has your husband ever done bite work?  If you don't know how to do the work correctly with a bite sleeve and train the dog, you can psychologically confuse the dog.  Let me know the answers and maybe we can figure out some things.

Dawn