Those prickly animals are porcupines around here, but are called hedgehogs elsewhere (are they the same? merely related?)
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I always thought that hedgehogs were small, brown and vaguely sweet, with spines of no more than about 2cm long. If found in your garden, then the correct protocol used to be to feed them on bread and milk. Also, they're sufficiently docile that you can pick them up and handle them (although, they're supposed to be rather flea-infested, so perhaps not such a good idea).

Porcupines I understood to be much larger, with very long quills, that they can bristle at you threateningly and even ? shoot at you. Decidedly undocile.