OK so what would YOU do if you saw a truck parked by the side of the road with a load of small pups exposed to the hot afternoon sun?

What if the pups were packed into flimsy wire cages with a big, fluorescent, poster-board sign plastered to the front advertising, “Puppy’s For Sale.”

Grammar and spelling corrections aside, what’s your next move? Confront the shirtless idiot sitting in the shade while the pups swelter? Or call the cops to call the guy out for the trio of violations he’s currently engaged in?

I elect the latter. Twice in the last month I’ve sat in my car across the street and calmly dialed the non-emergency 911 line. Calling Animal Control or Humane Services is a waste of time. They didn’t even know how to advise me when I first undertook this “Puppy Vice Squad” behavior a couple of years back. I’ve since learned that calling the 911 non-emerg line gets the job done just right.

No one likes a off-color puppy-broker. Not even busy cops who might otherwise prefer to spend their municipalities’ funds in ways that don’t include busting people on obscure, animal-related technicalities. But roadside pup-hawkers flaunt their ignorance of the law and their willingness to cross that oft-ephemeral, animal cruelty line in ways that curls the hackles on even the animal-unfriendliest of officer friendlies.

A twenty-minute wait for the patrol car. A series of gesticulations spied from my roadside perch. A ticket issued. And the truck pulls out, pups in tow.

So now you ask, “Why’d you bother? The guy got off with just a ticket! What about all those pups?”

I can’t save the world, ladies and gentlemen. I can only hope this guy finds his pups so hard to sell he won’t be breeding his bitch the next time. What can I say? That’s the best my municipality offers. And that’s the most I can do without risking personal violence or other significant retribution. What would you do?