The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Daytime

I was driving up the A50 toward Coalville, passing through Groby. At this point the road is a dual carriageway with a 50 mph speed limit. A large dog walked out into the road, and began sniffing at the ground. It was a type of dog I have never seen before, like a large bulldog with longer legs, bright copper in colour. It completely ignored several cars hurtling toward it, forcing us to do an emergency stop. The nearest car came to rest only a yard away from it. It looked up casually, saw the car and strolled back to the pavement. As I drove away, I watched it in the rear-view mirror, and saw it had returned to the road and resumed its sniffing, with its back toward the direction that traffic would approach from. I have never seen a dog behave like this before.