A few nights ago my dad’s dog, Buster, woke me up at about three o’clock in the morning barking his fool head off. I could tell by his bark that it was not a human intruder but rather a critter alert. It was a full Moon and I figured he probably saw a bug or something crawling across the yard and felt the need to inform the entire neighborhood. I yelled at him out the window to shut up and unbelievably he did. The next morning, as I was preparing to mow the grass, he started barking again and seemed to have something cornered under my dad’s big leaf blower machine. Remembering a week or two earlier, when he had tangled with a snake (killing it), I removed Buster to the pen and my dad and I went to investigate. We moved the leaf blower and exposed a hole in the ground about ten inches across. At first I couldn’t see anything in the hole but then I noticed movement and a large scaly rear end and tail. Then dirt began flying out of the hole. It was an Armadillo apparently trying to dig a hole to China to escape Buster. We found our old animal live-trap and I proceeded to dig the critter out with a shovel while he tried to outdig me and go deeper. I finally dug him out, herded him into the cage and relocated him about a mile into the woods behind our house.
They’ve been migrating this way from the Texas/Oklahoma area for a few years now. As my wife says, “Judging by the number we see squished on the highway, they’ve been traveling by way of I-40 eastbound….” This is the first time we’ve seen one here on our property.
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