parenting is hard

Tonight we got to go to dinner with Julie and Mike. It was the first time I had gotten to see her since she moved to Texas in November, and I was super excited. I was also in a good mood because Jamie and I had gone shopping earlier in the day and found the perfect rug for the living room. We brought it home and laid it out, and the dogs loved it. Merlin, especially, stretched out on it happy as a clam. And the best part? It's sheepskin, so the dog hair would blend in perfectly. We congratulated ourselves on our genius.Julie and Mike came over for drinks and then we headed over to Broder's - one of our favorite spots in Minneapolis. Dinner was great, and it was so good to spend the time with them. Because Mike has always lived outside of Minneapolis, I don't really know him that well. But every time we hang out, I am so thrilled that my friend has found such a wonderful guy, and that makes me so happy. We really had a great night.When we got home, we walked into the house to find the new rug shredded and covered in blood. That is never a good sign. We ran to the dogs to find Memphis completely normal, but Merlin had what appeared to be an enormous gash along his nose on one side, and a puncture wound that was swelling on the other side. Blood was in the kitchen, dining room and living room (and all over his paws and dripping down his face). To say I was freaked out would be putting it mildly.After several cleanup attempts and finally a google search to see how we should best clean the wound, we got the bleeding under control and found that it was not a 4-inch gash along his face as we had feared, but rather several puncture wounds on his snout. You know, from biting. So to say we are pissed at the Golden would be a bit of an understatement.We finally got him cleaned up and resting on a towel with an ice pack so the swelling seems to be going down a bit (which you can see above). But it's so frustrating not knowing what happened. We *suspect* that Memphis got hungry and started tearing at/eating the rug, and Merlin (who is the bottom of the pack, for sure) growled and got angry because he loved the new rug. But who knows - there's a good chance I am giving their thought process a little too much credit.All I know is fighting kids make one exhausted mother. And it also makes me think of all the hitting and kicking and biting my brother and I did to each other when we were young. Sorry Mom. But it was all his fault, I promise.