poor little guy, indeed!My neighbor has been known to shoot the little buggers he's the happies ground hog in the world.. He only has to work ONE day a year.Let me assure you that Phil is very lucky that he is where he is and not in our soy been fields. One ground hog can eat acres of soybean a year and there life is quite limited on the farm. Even Jess the farm dog (very large German Shepard) makes very short work of killing the critters. They are formidible fighters but Jess can grab them by the back and totally crush their bodies with her powerful jaws. She was injured only one time and that was when I yelled at Buster (the chocolate Lab sissy whose bark is worse than his bite) to shut up and Jess took her eyes off of the ground hog and looked at me and the ground hog ripped open Jess' snout and lip. None the less, all I know is that it's closer to summer now than it was at Christmas, fine with me.