Who's digging in my backyard?

A possum, a raccoon, a neighborhood cat. Any of them could be suspects. Three mornings in a row, I walk out to the backyard to take the dogs to pee. Three mornings in a row, little clumps of grass are missing from the yard. A patch here, a patch there, each about six inches in diameter. The third morning, it’s three feet around, one big, shallow pit of dirt where grass used to be. Who is behind this? I crouch down in the dirt to investigate. “Claw marks,” I mutter to myself. Little rows indented into the dirt, too indistinct to get an accurate toe count. I pull out my portable spectrometer to take a soil sample. As the machine whirrs to life, I notice some more evidence: two shell casings, barely the size of unpopped kernels of corn. “Tiny gun,” I mutter to myself. I document the casings with my camera and carefully place them into bags for forensics. I turn my attention back to my equipment; the readings from the spectrometer are off the chart. I’ve got DNA from nearly every mammalian species here. Cats, raccoons, horses, blue whales. What’s going on in the backyard? I get a call from forensics. The ballistics report comes back negative. “These aren’t bullet shells, they’re unpopped popcorn kernels.” This can’t be right. Have I lost my edge? Am I not cut out for this job anymore? I look to the spectrometer for answers, but now see it for what it really is: an iPhone 12. These aren’t test results, I’ve googled “animals.” I fall to the ground as my worldview shatters around me. My face lands in a puddle of dog pee.