A Black Dog in the Winter Sun

Here's a lovely excerpt from an e-mail that my brother, who is living in Australia, sent me today:

"I was walking down the CBD [Central Business District] streets this morning at 10:00 and there was a black dog stretched out in the sun on the sidewalk just chilling, completely happy & sleepy-eyed, (probably waiting for his owner in a shop,) making the pedestrians walk around him because he was in his spot in the sun & no one was gonna make him move over into the shade along the wall of the storefront. And people did walk around him."

Imagining that contented dog sprawled in the sunshine halfway across the world filled me with happiness.