Did It Have Balls? – The Story of Huck and the Groundhog

Famous last words. As a parent, there are certain things you never expect to hear from your 4 year-old. “Did it have balls?” is one of those things. In the midst of packing for Vegas, we had quite the little event that can only be expected when you live on 8 acres of farmland.

The girls love to play on their playground and you can usually find them swinging like monkeys from the swings, slide or rock walls. Our neighborhood is really secure but they always take Huck, our 1.5 year-old goldendoodle, outside with them for protection.

Huck’s Mission

For the past few weeks, Huck has been tracking a groundhog that has been terrorizing our property. Think massive tunnels and holes that go from the shed to the barn and damage approaching the tens of thousands of $$$. I truly believe this groundhog has been taunting my husband, only appearing at the most inopportune times to be shot at and when we finally got a shot off, his fat ass just hopped up and ran away unfazed.

No one cares about your shadow!

Well yesterday, Huck finally caught him to far away from his hole. Imagine a 60lbs dog tossing around a stuffed animal. Now picture that stuffed animal fighting back and trying waddle away and then add in two screaming little girls in the background. Ava yells at the top of her lungs, “MOMMY!!!! HUCK IS FIGHTING THE GROUNDHOG!” I run to see my big fur-baby getting all scrappy actually afraid he was getting his ass kicked because he’s such a pansy.

Not being able to stop Huck, I went into house screaming at my husband, who was in the shower at the time, that Huck was murdering a groundhog and his response was “good.” Highly anticlimactic. My husband is from the country so he’s used to dealing with rodents and farm creatures. This city girl is not. I’m still traumatized. He threw on some shorts, grabbed his axe and off to the scene of the crime he went. It was kind of hot actually because beards and axes….. The groundhog is no more and the turkey buzzards took it from there. The circle of life continues.

Scene of the crime

Damage Control

 The girls saw a lot but it comes with the territory. They’ve also seen a full size deer arm on our sidewalk but I’ll save that story for another day. We wanted to make sure they understood that this groundhog was bad because he was too close to them and that Huck was doing his job as their protector. The following conversation ensues:

4 year old: Was the groundhog a baby groundhog?

Me: No. It was really big.

4 year old: Was it a mommy or daddy groundhog?

Me: I don’t know Mak.

4 year old: Well, did it have balls?

And on that note, I kissed them goodbye and went to the airport. Never a dull moment.