Turtle hunting 101: they don't wear fur coats

It seems the turtle under the deck has moved location slightly. I assumed this because Rufus is no longer barking at the middle of the deck but now at the far corner that is encased on two sides by dirt and not just more deck wood. Just to be sure this was where the turtle had moved to I asked Rufus "Where is the turtle, is it over here where it was before or is it now over here by the edge of the deck?". Rufus looked at me a little oddly (Turtle?) and then responded by sniffing the first spot I pointed to and then pouncing on the new spot by the edge and barking and scratching the deck. Check, position confirmed. Since it's under the edge of the deck I decided to dig under the boards and see if I could grab the turtle. I started digging a small tunnel then put on a garden glove and poked around a bit. I hit a dirt wall so I evidently had more dirt to remove. I made the hole wider and deeper and then used a hand spade to pull out what I assumed to be any dirt keeping me from the turtle. Then I touched something that gave a little, was kind of soft, so I poked it a bit with the spade. Whatever I touched growled a little so I of course poked it again (just like in horror movies). It growled a little louder. Since this scenario doesn't go down so well in movies I decided to pack in my digging, grab Rufus and go to plan B, which was ignoring the situation for a little while. Once safe inside the house I got a note pad and wrote the following message to my neighbor Marie:

Marie,
I think I may have found your turtle but before I stick my hand under the deck there's a couple things I need to know:
~Does your turtle growl?
~Does your turtle bite after it growls?

I signed the note, stuck it to the neighbor's front door and took Rufus to the doggie park.
When I returned from our romp in the park I decided to take a look at the hole to see if the turtle was slowly making it's way out of the escape hatch I dug for it. To my surprise I could now see grey fur sticking out of the hole. Either the turtle had somehow acquired a fur jacket or this was something other than a reptile. Common sense pointed to the latter and I assumed the creature was a raccoon. I guessed raccoon since I had noticed several raccoons at different parts of our neighborhood in daylight lately, which is odd, the daylight part, but it's what came to mind. I went next door and removed the note and instructed Rufus that he wasn't allowed out in the backyard without constant supervision until I had gotten rid of the raccoon.

When I returned to the house after meeting the Roommate for dinner, I commented that maybe it was a soon-to-be mama raccoon, to which Rufus wasn't very happy. I went to let Rufus outside but once he got near the back door he started going ape-shit. To my horror I noticed a pinkish-grey varmint in the backyard, slowly making it's way across the lawn. I recognized this beast by it's close resemblance to Country Western singing star George Jones---a possum (or opossum, depending where you grew up). This bugger is going to be a little more complicated to remove than a turtle, biting variety or not. I let the neighbor know I had thought I had located her pet but turns out no unless her turtle hangs by it's tail from a tree branch.

What to do, what to do? Not sure how to evict a possum, that is I no longer know any hillbillies since I left Louisiana, hence no one to fix possum stew. A co-worker offered me the use of his firearm but I declined; I think I'll see if someone will trap it for me and release it to some wooded farm, like the farms where old dogs go to live out their golden years. Stay tuned.