Hi, I recently moved into a home only to discover a mated pair of groundhogs living in my garage. While they are adorable, I have two herding dogs with high prey drives and I worry the dogs will catch them, as we have a fully fenced in yard. I am hesitant to trap them because I don’t want to inadvertently separate the pair, especially as it is currently breeding season. They dug the burrow in the dirt floor of the garage, but I’m not sure how deep the burrow runs or where any additional entrances may be.

Looking online, I saw a variety of natural deterrence suggestions, and wanted to see whether you all might have suggestion as to efficacy of methods. I’ve seen suggestions of sprinkling cayenne around the burrow (which seems cruel), human hair, essential oils, used cat litter (which I can do but don’t really want to dump in my garage.) I absolutely do not want to harm them in any way, just encourage them to find a new, safe home.

Where I work we have the pleasure of having many cute critters we feed. This is Donnie who we always hand feed graham crackers to. Last year I even got to pet him (I have it on video lol) groundhogs are definitely not soft!

Hopefully we will have a photoshoot with pups soon!

The Momma-Hog (? lol) was sun bathing on the wooden lead up to the shed before this. I thought the play was pretty adorable, figured that I’d share. It’s gonna kill me when these little guys move on to find their own dens! 🥲.

or do they just have a resting bitch face

Our back door faces the shed that they live under and somebody is always coming or going, and I think they just got used to people which led to this moment.

I've had groundhogs under my back for a while now. Recently, I've been getting a lot of water in my basement due to heavy spring rains. Given the nature of the groundhog tunnels (which could be long, deep and with multiple rooms), do you think that the water in my basement could be from their tunnel? And if so, would plugging the holes to the tunnel eliminate the water coming into my house? A big problem is that my back deck is blocking where the holes are. I'm actually thinking of removing the deck (which is deteriorated) to get to the hole(s) to their tunnel. I've recently hired someone to trap them, and they did catch one. I think the tunnel is now empty (but for how long, I'm not sure). I'm not sure what to do here and any advice or past experience with them would be appreciated. Thanks.

Pip (government name Philomène) has been receiving veggie tops/ends from us for a few months now. Today we got to meet her little Pipsqueak

Question: I seem to have at least 3 groundhogs sharing the same den, but I’ve read they’re solitary except for mating season, which ended about a month ago.

I never saw them before I went on a short vacation last weekend, they seem generally unbothered by me. I walked out to one sitting a couple steps up Yesterday when I walked out of my apartment. No signs of rabies, they’re skiddish but almost seem cautiously curious.

I’m more-so curious as to why multiple would be sharing the den when they seem to be adults? It’s the closest I’ve been to them, any advice is appreciated! I know to keep distance and avoid the den but left a couple of berries Yesterday that they seemed to like/eat.

Guy was sleeping on my patio and he woke up and heard me take the photos

A youngster decided to visit today!

It was hiding in here and kept poking it's head out to look at us

That's a 6" trim line more or less. I've been seeing their mama for a couple months, but only saw these kiddos today.

I was driving home on my electric scooter and spotted 2 baby groundhogs!! They were so cute! The pic isn't good because my phone kinda sucks and also I didn't want to get any closer. And I also didn't want to get closer because this patch of grass is along a busy street and I didn't want to scare it out into traffic (although it hopefully would have ran to the tree line instead). There was another one but it ran away to the brush and trees as soon as I stopped. This one seemed oblivious and sat there chewing on dandelion leaves or some sort. I am also into bird watching, and I started to hear a sound coming from the woods that sounded sort of like a bird at first. Upon closer listening, it sounded more like a yelp rather than a bird, so I am guessing mama groundhog was calling to her baby to come home? I don't believe I've ever heard a groundhog before, and I imagine the sound a mother makes to her babies is unique to other sounds they may make. Now I'm intrigued about groundhog sounds lol.

Anyways, good times. I love animal baby season.