Fierce Gardening

What kind of animal is about the size and color of a rugby ball, has no discernable ears, is kind of shlubby and chubby and not very toned, is neither a cat, a rabbit, a raccoon, nor a rat, and sneaks into my city yard after dinner to eat my plants?

Whatever it is, it gives me the creeps. I feel invaded. It is coming from the back meeting place of three garages where the fences don't connect. This means that I, still the lone head of the household, must

go to home depot
buy wire mesh
replace a broken staple gun
and probably a stake or something to drive into the ground to prevent burrowing or whatever it does to beat fencing
and go back into the far corner of my yard to face mutant mosquitos and crawl spaces and who knows what else.

And what if instead of fencing it out, I fence it in? There is a reason I live in the city. Vermin are either small or life size. These I am familiar with. What the heck is this hedgehog or platypus or baby muskox or whatever it is doing sneaking about? And it is sneaking about. I go out, it runs away. I disappear for a bit, and it returns. If I fence it in by mistake, will it attack?

"Who has a bb gun?" I ask my daughters.
No answer.
"Ok, who has a real gun?" I try.

"A real gun?" one replies. "You are going to shoot a little groundhog with a gun? You are going to shoot a little groundhog with a gun because it is eating your flowers?"

Well. No. If you put it that way.