Accidentally short hike

Conker and I hopped over to Cathedral Hills today with the intention of spending several hours there doing a long-loop, but instead we hiked less than 3 miles on accident.

Conker felt inclined to mark every few feet. He always does on the first mile or so of the hike. I don't wait for him, he always catches up before I get too far ahead.

This bridge is relatively new. Conker has a problem with bridges, he doesn't like to cross them for the first time. I have never really paid attention until now, but since this bridge has been put in, he has not crossed it yet. He's always gone around it. So today, I had him cross with me a couple times to show it was safe.
(Unlike the log at the creek, this bridge is built to support horses. It did not fall while we walked across it.)

We hiked along the Outback trail for a while then ducked onto a short and easy loop called Ponderosa. We haven't been on it in a while. During that stretch of the hike, we heard and saw many golfers (Cathedral Hills is bordered on one side by the local country club) and a couple of them were tromping through the woods, looking for their balls, I suppose.

This is where things got messed up. I "missed" the left-turn off Ponderosa back onto Outback and instead headed right back towards the t5railhead. I didn't notice until we were already halfway back. I would have turned around and just added an extra 1/2 mile to the hike, but I realized that I'd also forgotten the collapsible water bowl. Conker will drink out of my hand, but it's difficult, since he will only take a few laps at a time and can take up to five minutes to drink enough water at any given water-break.
We might go back tomorrow to make up for the messup today, even though I generally don't like to hike on Friday because of how many other people are on the trails.

On another note...
We saw a horse rider in the parking lot and as I was leaving, he flagged me down. He asked if Conker was a Shiba Inu, then said that he'd seen us before and that he'd done some research on the breed. I thought that was cool, and we chatted for a bit before heading back home.