First off I did not know the dog was going to do THAT poorly on the trail ride. I had my reservations because my friend is not super dog savvy, but she is also a 40y/o+ woman so it was not my place to tell her what she can and cannot do with her dog.
We actually took the dog with us after my friend had had her for only a week on our beach ride. My friend initially was only going to leave her in the truck when we went to the beach but one thing lead to another and we took the dog with us on the trails and out onto the beach. The dog was fine the entire ride other than jumping on the horses/yipping a little bit. At that point the dog had not been submissively peeing, she was soft but not nearly as soft as she was yesterday. My friend lives 2hrs away from me, I haven't seen the dog since that day and had no idea she was going to be that weird. My friend yelled at her horse plenty of times at the beach and the dog did not miss a beat following us.
Everything I stated in the post about them not having a great relationship in 6 weeks was all learned DURING/AFTER our ride - I only put it in there to explain how much of a cluster the whole situation was.
It's really great that you would do things differently. I think we all would change certain things that have happened in the past if we could.
Whether or not I lack common sense I must be doing something right. My dogs are well behaved, they don't try to bite me, and I can take them horseback riding with no worries.
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In other news I have not gotten any response from craigslist and have not heard anything from the ranger that I called. I'm going to call the park itself and see if anyone has heard anything.