Sorry to hear of your misfortune. I have similar problems with squirrels and chipmunks uprooting seedlings and plants. I know how frustrating it can be to nurture a plant and then see it wither. I have no experience with Avocado trees, but I have seen other trees send up a new shoot from the trunk when the main trunk dies. That may be what your tree is doing. If the shoot is near the roots, you may eventually have a strong tree from it. Select one sprout and trim off all of the others. Or you may want to just start over with a new seed and use this one to experiment with bonsai. Your title brought back a memory from long ago. I once told my teacher that the dog ate my homework. The teacher didn't believe my made-up story. She must have seen the TV show that gave the idea to me. I was not destined to be a con-man.

I do need night vision! My garden is in SF Bay Area. I would place my bets on a squirrel. I've never seen a rabbit here. I'm going to get my fence around my garden this week. I'll be really ticked if everything gets eaten as soon as it's ripe!

9 days later, those buds have lengthened to about 3.5" for the top one, and around 2" for those below, with small leaves unfolding quite nicely However, the presumptive "leader", The bud on the upper left, is still growing straight out at a 40 degree angle and showing no signs of curving upward yet. Will it continue growing this way for a while or will it start to turn up before the growth hardens off? Most other trees I have done a heading back cut on, the new leader starts curving upward almost immediately.

"You can get some metal posts and deer cloth pretty inexpensively" This! It's the only thing that allowed me to harvest toms in Wisconsin. I used 2"x 2" tall stakes around my raised bed(about two feet out all the way around) and tied the deer netting to it, leaving one corner loose for access which I secured with clothespins. The deer can't see it but they can feel it and leave it alone.