Random barking at men

[punter]

Punterdog is a 2 year old yellow lab. Very social, loves other dogs and people BUT has decided to bark at random men when we walk in the woods. There is no intent to do any more than circle round barking and will (eventually) come when called. Today it was a lone man standing by his bike leaning on the fence, he was doing some stretches so we thought that may have spooked the dog. Then we came across two men and a woman with a dog that we had met about 20 mins earlier and had a good chat and dog play with. From quite a way off our dog started barking at one of the men and did the same circling round him as if warning him off. When the bloke tried
to talk to him and called him by name it did no good. Should we just ignore it and does anyone else have this problem? thanks

My rescue GSD used to bark at lone men without a dog. It took a few months to stop him doing it, I kept a lookout and would get in first with a distraction (furry squeaky toy) before he started barking. Made him sit and focus on me, then we played with toy till man had gone past. Now he completely ignores everyone.
Maybe you could use extra tasty treats as yours is a lab.

Thanks ender. Tried the treat one yesterday afternoon when he stopped and looked hard at a man who was standing by the pond. Sort of worked, punter dog had his nose in the air as if he was scenting something, or trying to, and I got his attention in time. I know my dog picks up on fearful or crying children, if they are walking along happily he just ignores them. So I am doing my ninja act of scanning the horizon for lone men or crying kids.

My terrier barks at people exercising. I must have missed that out of his socialisation - just last week I failed to spot a man skipping and he yapped at him. Probably the second incident was trigger stacking - he was already on alert from the earlier man.

I'm wondering if you feel tense when you see lone men and he has picked up on this? I would look up "look at that". So the second he clocks a nan but doesn't react, mark it and treat/play.

A man, not a nan!

Spicy, I think that's a good point about feeling tense when seeing a lone man, and the dog picking up on it. I used to be a bit anxious when I saw a man wandering about in the woods, although will happily chat to anyone with a dog. Strange because there's nothing to stop a potential mugger/rapist owning a dog.