Hmmm -- not a good sign and there could be any one of several causes. Disregard the article -- which is just stuff churned out by a content farm, not an expert article -- it is mostly pretty silly.
I would guess all of this is basic guarding behaviour and should be addressed right away. But there are two other things I'd want to consider:
The first thing is: how are you picking her up? A dog should never be picked up by its front 'arms', like a child or say, a cat (a far more flexible animal!
). To pick her up, she should be gently but firmly held with both hands, with support under her chest and under her hindquarters so she does not dangle. It can be very painful to pick up a dog by its from legs and could dislocate a shoulder. So this could be the cause?
The second thing, if she is being picked up correctly, is to check with your vet that she isn't otherwise painful on her body (ie that there isn't pain causing her to growl when being picked up).
Given that she growls when being picked up (and unlike that article's claim, that is not 'normal' for most puppies) and also growls on the couch -- this is at least in part, almost certainly guarding behaviour and should be worked on immediately.
On the one hand, you need to work on gently handling her body so this is comfortable and normal for her. Then you also need to address the guarding (the couch behaviour).
Ian Dunbar addresses both of these in After You Get Your Puppy.
Have you downloaded it and if so, did you have a look for the sections that talk about these things? That's where I would start. At this time you should also be working every day on preventing food and object guarding, following his suggestions.
Be sure to take daily time to work on these issues as guarding often keeps accelerating if ignored, or dealt with by punishment (which generally reinforces and worsens the behaviour) and can actually become a very dangerous behaviour (at extremes dogs will bite without warning and cannot be approached when guarding objects). But those are extremes and you have lots of time to work on this.
Many dogs start this behaviour as puppies and that is why Ian Dunbar stresses so strongly the steps to take to avoid this, from day one.