Good Samaritan or Total A$$hat: You Decide

My dear readers, I need your help. I'm struggling with a moral dilemma. Put your thinking caps on.

OK, so there's this dog. It's really cute. I think it's a basset hound. It's a little...chunky. So it's a fat basset hound. When I moved back to Farmsville, I started noticing this dog on the side of the highway that runs past my house. I live in the country, so it's not uncommon to see random animals roaming around, but this dog was actually running across the highway. Trotting along IN the highway.

The first few times I saw it, I laughed. Funny dog. How cute.

Now? It just pisses me off. I've seen this dog near my house and in town and a million places in between. Yesterday, it was in a cornfield barking at a turkey. In the fall, I often saw it making friends with a dog in town. And today, I almost splattered it. For like the 1,000th time.

It has to stop.

I was driving home from some errands. I came around the corner. There is the dog, trotting down the middle of the highway with a chunk of some kind of frozen meat in its mouth. Or a large stone. Whatever it was, it was glistening in the sunlight with ice crystals. So I slow down, and the dog decides to go right in front of me. There is someone behind me, no doubt wondering what the hell I'm doing. We are now at a complete stop. Waiting for the dog to move. It stares at me. We make eye contact. I lay on the horn. It does nothing.

I adore this dog. I find him rather hilarious. But I've also almost helped him meet his maker roughly twice a week for a year. One of these days, one of us isn't going to make it. Not to mention the billion other drivers and motorcycle riders and semi-trucks that blast down that road daily.

So what to do?

I can see that the dog has a tag. I can either:

A.) Pick up the dog one day and return it to its owner and explain that I don't want to kill it.

B.) Send a letter to the editor of the town paper requesting that the dog be kept on a leash.

C.) Call the cops and make a report about the dog.

D.) Steal the dog and call it my own.

E.) Accidentally splatter the dog and ruin my car.

F.) Read about a little old lady who died when she tried to miss the dog.

G.) Do nothing. Continue to swerve and stop for the dog.

It's truly a dilemma. People are VERY protective of their animals. I know I am. If somebody messed with King or Webbie, I'd hurt them. If someone called the cops on King, I'd be highly irritated. If someone sent a letter to the editor, I'd be embarrassed. But if someone did NOTHING and Kingie DIED or someone else got hurt or died because of Kingie, I'd be horrified. Oh, and yes, I realize King is an indoor cat. But you know. I'm just sayin'.

I don't know what to do. What if I stop and check the tag and the dog bites me? I highly doubt it would, but it did have a pretty good grip on that chunk of frozen meat. And what if I call the owner or take the dog to the owner and they answer the door with a shotgun? You never know around here. Hmmm....

What do you think?