[mjfish]

I'm not an expert, but my first thought when you said that he straddles the kids is that he thinks he owns them...they are his...and is therefore being possessive of them, which I definitely would not accept. As far as your hugging and the carrying of kids, that to me seems more like protective behavior. Our Rott did this at first when we hugged -- we sternly told him NO and had him lay down. He's fine about that now. He still does get aggitated when I play with my nephews, especially the younger one, and I view that as being more protective than possessive (but I could be wrong in viewing it like that). Again, we tell him NO and make him down or make him move away from the area of activity.

He needs to understand that you control the activity, not him. What do you do when he jumps on the bed to straddle the child? How do you handle the other times he shows this behaviour?

At any rate, it's not a good behaviour and should be corrected. Put him in a down outside of the room, so that he see what is going on but cannot be involved. Oftentimes, I've found that separation is more effective at getting your point across because they just want to be with their people so badly. How much obedience training have you done with him? I would be very careful about letting him up on furniture because it is obvious he has decided at times to allow himself up there...a possible "no furniture/beds at all" rule might be warranted for a while.