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> if foo is a branch

It does `git pull <default remote> foo`.

> vs a remote

It gives an error, because you haven't specified the remote.

I don't know what behaviour you find intuitive here?

> how do you fix it if you messed up/which is preferred when both exist?

git pull is YOLO mode, so I never do it, but I would just reset the branches where I want them to be? You get a summary with the old and new commit hashes, so resetting is really easy.