Is your ground frozen yet? It is a little late but still better than spring. People who have problems with squirrels and gophers sometime make a mesh box out of wire with about 1 inch holes and plant their bulbs and such in so that they can't be easily dug up by varmits.

Go ahead and plant, and water them in well. The idea behind garlic in the fall is to allow them to develop roots, and they'll do that if the ground isn't frozen.

I've not had squirrels and gophers bother garlic - tulips for sure, but they leave garlic alone. One fall I planted a hundred daffodil bulbs and that night, the raccoons came along and dug them all up. Planted them again, dug up again. Finally they got tired of it. I have no idea why, daffodils being toxic.

Here in Western Montana I have planted garlic this late with good results, although I think several weeks earlier would have been advantageous. And in fact I did plant earlier this year than ever before. All just FWIW.

I've never had problems with garlic being dug up but the neighborhood cats sure like the "litter box" my garlic bed seems to offer. So I lay down a barrier of some kind of wire- I've used different kinds of cheap fencing and now have some green-coated panels that we use to make instant fence.