On an Easter afternoon about 5 years ago, my dog had a memorable encounter with a gopher in my backyard. He had been digging after this rodent; and finally, on that Sunday afternoon he got it! However, that gopher bit him on his lip. My dog has not forgotten this insult. When he goes walking at the gopher infested park in our town, he continues the hunt for this lowly beast. My dog becomes Carl Spackler. Today, as we were ending our walk, I saw what I thought was the remains of a squirrel that a coyote may have torn apart. Then the thing moved - jumped. Holy Smokes! It's a gopher above ground. My dog was on like Donkey Kong. He jammed his nose down that hole blasting his giant head into the ground. His snout must have sucked out all the oxygen from the tunnel system in one breath. He immediately started in excavating the area with rigorous swipes of the ground with his island size paws removing buckets of earth. Sadly, he came away empty pawed. The gopher got away again. Perhaps he will use the Elmer Fudd technique next time since the Carl Spackler way has proved fruitless.